Prepping For Filming Location

So the final location which we decided as said earlier within the director pitch was Milton Keynes.

Here is the root in which we are having to take to travel to the filming location, it will take us approximately 45 minutes to get there.

We picked this location for a number of reasons. One of the reasons we picked the location was because of the lay out of the actual building, the way in which they have been built has left an open space within the middle which we wanted to take advantage of. Also a lot of the music videos which we looked at for guidance used city location, so we did this and tried to incorporate the building into the music video the same way as the ones which we looked at for inspiration.

Here are some of the shots from the scenary from Milton Keynes.

As you can see from these images the construction which is in Milton Keynes is very appealing to us because of attractiveness of them. Also they fit the role for the type of scenery which we are trying to go for in our music video.

The day which we are planning for the filming to take place is Thursday 6th January 2011.

First Filming Attempted

This is our first part of filming which went wrong due to a number of reasons.We originally planned to go to Hunstanton to do filming on the 26th of October,but unfortunately this is the only day which we could go and this is the day in which the weather was terrible, it did not stop raining and it was extremely windy.

Here is the map, this is the route which we took to get tothebeach,the reason why we went to this chosen beach is because it was close and the location was an area we we knew.

The main idea was to go up there for the day then hopefully get half of the filming done, but as shown in the video above it did not go to plan because of poor weather conditions.

However, overall I actually think this worked out for the best. By doing this we had an experiences of trying to do lip syncing, so when it comes to our actual final filming we will find it a lot easier to make the lip syncing work and look good.

Here are some of the photo's which we took during the day of filming.

Directors Pitch

Director Pitch/ Treatment For Music Video.

Name Of Artist: J.R.A

Title of Track: Closure

Genre: Acoustic

Terget Audiences: Age of 15-30

Outline of Ideas: What will happen?

There will be a vairety 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 performace based and narrative.

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

What the actually music video is a typical pop video with a male character portaying his feeling through song about a girl which he has lost. The male character is just a sterotype of a young male which plays guitar being really emtional, also singing about a girl.

Locations

For the filming of the music video we have discussed as a group various locations to film in. We have decided on the locations of Milton Keynes town centre, also abbingdon park in Northampton Town. The reason why we picked these two location is because they have a really good varity of scerny, which is postive because it will make our music video a lot more interesting.

What Resoures are needed?

For the actual filming of our music video we need a camera, tripod, form of transport. We also need a car for the fliming because we are trying to do steady smooth tracking shots, by having a car when filming it would make the shot so much easier.

Key Shots and Special Feartures

· Low angle long shot of the 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 Realtaion to Genre and Artist

The vast majority of the video is of the artist, who happens to be the actor as well. This is a generic feature of the genre which we are doing already, so it fits in well.

RESEARCH Target Audiences Feedback for Digipak and Adverts

What we wanted to do as a group for our target audiences feedback for to give the a mix media response we did this by making mini movies for each question which we did. We recoreded the target audiences and then editied the movie on Imovie. As a group we decided that a miniature movies is a lot more interesting to watch compared to sitting there reading loads of texts which just explains the same thing.

For the target audiences it consisted of students from our school, we decided in our group that they are the main people which this music is aimed at. We had a 3 females and 2 males, we did this because we thought that the music may be more appealing to females.

Here our the nine videos one for each question which we asked our target audiences.

RESEARCH Digipak and Advert First Draft

Two Advert Drafts.

Digipak Draft. Front, Back and Inside.

As you can see from both of the drafts of the Digipak and Adverts they are to a basic level. We decided to do them as pencil drawing because we wanted to wait to get the images to do the second draft of our digipak and adverts. The thing which we tried to achieve when designing them was to advertise the actual album within the advert rather than just the artist. We tried to keep the same colour scheme going within both the digipak and advert, this is so that the target audiences can see a clear link between both of them. We have chosen the setting of the beach for the digipak and advert because we agreed that it fitted quite well to the genre of acoustic and laid back pop.

When we were designing this we took into consideration who the target audiences would be for it, we decided that it would be people who would listen to this would be people of age between 16-30 and pretty even between boys and girls.

RESEARCH Animatics Target Audiences Feedback

This is the Animatics which we produced from story boards. We did this to give the target audiences a vague ide

a of what they would get within our final product music video. The way which we produced it was within imovie on apple and took still shots of all of the story boards which we drew.

Here is an image of part of our target audiences watching the animatic.











Here is the animatic target audiences response, we did this with one male and two females. This is only a brief video because it was only a short animatic and there was not so much for them to say about it compared to the advert and digipak drafts.

RESEARCH Lyrics

Closure Lyrics

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 someone 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.

These are the lyrics to the song which we are making for the music video J.R.A Closure. When reading through these lyrics we all really liked and drawn to them because we came up with a lot of ideas which were really good. They also give of a lot of area to move between narrative and performance based video.

RESEARCH Mood-board of Digipak Covers

Here is two mood boards which I put together. The idea of this is to help us as a group to try and get inspiration for the music video and the designing of the digipak and advert. The first mood-board is representing all of the generic and stereotype features for the music genre and type which we picked as a group. The sort of things which I have tried to include are clothing worn, scenery used, instruments, colour patterns, album covers and outlay of images.

RESEARCH Digipack Deconstruction

When looking into digipacks, we were trying to pick the same genre as the song which we have chosen to make a music video to. The genre which we picked was Pop/Acoustic, so the Digipacks which i am going to deconstruct are James Morrison Undiscovered and Paolo Nutini These Streets.

James Morrison

Undiscovered

This is the digipack for James Morrison debut album undiscovered. This fall under the genre which we are doing for a actually music video which is the reason why i am deconstrucing it.

Looking at the digipack personally I believe that it is very dull when considering the type of genre which it is. The colours of green and gray are not really attracive colours to try and draw the audience into want to buy the CD. However on the other hand this could be portraying the feelings and emtions which we trying to get across within his music, a lot of the music which is on this album is very personal and emtional, so he would not try to put across the album with loads of vibrant colours because that would be the total opposite of what he is trying to get across within his music. The thing which we have is a big close up of James Morrison him self so it sort of gives the audiences the feeling of more close to the artist because it is himself on the front not an image of something.

The writting on the digipack is big and bold, obviously done for the sole purpose to make it stick out more for the audiences especially the front with his name and title of the album. We also have the track list on the back but this is on pretty much most albums covers. When we go to inside the digipack it sticks to the same sort of colour patern, however the CD sort of stands out abit because it is more of a darker green compared to the rest of the CD. The CD also looks like it has just had dirt and paint splashed over it, maybe it sort of goes with the title of the album which is Undiscoverd and thats what the CD is.

Paolo Nutini - These Streets.

This is Paolo Nutini debut album these streets, the same as the James Morrison this falls under the same categorise as J.R.A song which we are doing for the final music video which we are doing.

This digipacks contrast to the James Morrison digipack this is very different when it comes down to the way the artist is shown and portrayed to the buying audience.

The album on a whole is very vibrant and attractive covers which makes the album more appealing to the buying audiences because they are a lot more attractive colours. The colour coordination very well thought through, and having the image of the artist on the front within each of the stripes makes him stand out more. Also as I said about the James Morrison digipack having the artist on the front of the magazine makes it more appealing to the audience because they feel like they are more connected to the artist and get more familiar with them. Also he stands out because he is a contrast in colour to the rest of the album being black, however the colour of him goes with the CD so they have look at the colour coordination for that as well. The cover and back gets across to the audiences what type of music it is which is on the album which is up beat acoustic but the there is a sense of sadness as well within the music, and you get this hint from the artist being put across as a very dull colour on the front.

The Font on the digipack all fits in together, with it all black which is the same colour as Paolo Nutini on the front cover, the writing also stands out because it is black and then it goes onto a really bright back ground as well which makes it stand out even more. Also we have the track list which is always on album covers there in black as well to make it stand out. One of the other things which make this digipack standout is the sticker on the front because it goes on about his singles, people may see that and want to buy the album because they love the single.

RESEARCH Song Choice

This is the mind map which we came up for song which we were going to create a music video for. The way which the process started was having a group discussion about which songs we thought we should do as a group. We all came to a agreement that wanted to do a pretty slow beat song because it would be easier to create a music video for, so the sort of genre which we have settled on is easy listening and a bit of acoustic.

The songs which we were looking to do at the beginning was a lot of John Mayer songs but we decided against due to the reason that it would be to hard to try and make a music video for them because the song and tempo of it. Our second choice was When We Say by AJ Rafael we were certain that we were going to do this but then decided against it because it had a music video and we did not want to get influenced by it. So after we decided against it we wanted to find a song which we all agreed on that we could make a music video for which didn't have a current music video.

The song which we decided on was Closure by J.R.A, the reason why we chose this song is because it does not have music video and it is a perfect song for what we are looking for, which is slow easy lyrics to try and portray within the music video and a song which is not really well known. The artist J.R.A is not signed to a record label so we had to get in contact with him personally so we contacting him 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.





Please click on the images above to make them clearer.

Choice of Groups

Within my group there is (Thomas Blakey), Oliver Brookes and Ellie Ross.

The first reason why we chose to go in the same group is because we are all close friends and see each other most of the time so it is good to help with getting the work load done. Also the other reason why we chose to go in a group is that we all have different skills which we can contribute to the group. Such as Ollie is good at working with the camera's and Ellie is really good at ensuring that we have the right amount of time spent on each shot and she tries to make sure that the mise en scene is good enough. Then I am the one who is good at working and editing the film because have become quite familiar with Apple's Imovie.

RESEARCH Music Video Analysis

Music Video: Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana, Director Samuel Bayer.

Features :

• Genre Characteristics: the genre which this is heavy mental, and it is a performance video which is happening within a school gym.
• Relationship between lyrics and visual: there is a clear relationship within this video because the title of the song is 'Smells Like Teen Sprit' and the video has taken place within a school gym which is full of teenagers.
• Relationship between music and visual: the relationship between these two is put across through whats happening within the music video, the music seems quite violent and this is emphasised within the music video which is showing people being quite violent and reckless.
• Close up of the artists: we have a number of close ups of all of the band, but we have a lot of close ups on the lead singer Kurt Cobain.
• Reference to the notion of looking: there is not any within this music video.
• Intertextual references: none come up within this music video.
• Type of Music Video: this a performance based music video.
• Hegemonic/ Non Hegemonic: this is a counter hegemonic music video.

Music Video: Brand New Day Joshua Radin

• Genre Characteristics: the genre of this song is Altertnative/Easy Listening, and the video is sort of ironic because it is opposite to easy listening because of amount of stuff which is happening within the music video.
• Relationship between lyrics and visual: There is a clear relationship between the lyrics and visual, because the song is called Brand New Day and it is showing how anything which happens to him he will be alright because it is showing in the video with all that stuff still happening to him he'll still be alright.
• Relationship between music and visual: the music video is ironic when it is linked to the genre of music, usually the video is very calm and laid back so it goes with the music. However on the other hand this music video is really crazy and everything seems to be going on within it the music video.
• Close up of the artist: This video has a lot of close ups of the artist because it just him and not a whole of another band. But we do have a lot of variety of shots within the hole music video which makes it a lot more interesting.
• Reference to the notion of looking: they only have notion of looking within the music video which is when he gets kidnapped into the van and you have his vision which is him looking into the van with the two guys in it.
• Intertextual references: there is no intertextual references.
• Type of Music Video: this is a performance based video because it always has him singing and playing the guitar throughout, however you could say that it is narrative because it does tell a story throughout the video, a lot of little sub stories.
• Hegemonic/ Non Hegemonic: neither does not really do anything to prove either side of argument.

Screen Shots

Music Video Remake Preliminary Task

The song which we had chosen was Kickstart By Example, we chose this song is on the bases of the music video for the song because it was a bit different to the usual music video which you see. This is a narrative music video because it has no performance linking into the video. What we set out to do was to copy and try to recreate the music video to the best standard which we were capably of. The main story of the video is that there is a couple then two of the thugs are after them, we have tried to copy the video is every aspect possible.

When reviewing the video were overall happy with how it has turned out, the only problem which we thought about when looking back over the video is that we have not used anything new to AS media videos, such as we could of used lip syncing which would of made and developed our skills within media studies.

And here is the original video which we tried to remake.

Key Featrues of a Music (Andrew Goodwin)

Andrew Goodwin has came up with his own ideas which are the general key features of a music video. These are the following 6 steps of key features of a music video:

1. Music videos demonstrates certain gender characteristics. So it shows certain things which can be shown for a specific gender, such as a specific dance routine for a boy/girl band.
2. There is always be a relationship between the lyrics and the visual which is being displayed. Such as illustrative amplifying or contracting.
3. there should be shown a relationship between the music and the visual which is being displayed.
4. The demands of the record label which include a lot of close up of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work.
5. There is usually a frequently reference to the notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.
6. There is often intertextual reference to films or other music videos which may be associated.

One other fact which may come into a music video:

• The music video will be performance based or narrative based or concept based and how the elements of each are used in it. It could also be a hybrid which is a mixture of like a narrative and performance based music video.