Star Analysis

Target Audience Types

ROUGH CUT FEEDBACK

Social Media Promotion

The most successful way that Artist's can now promote new albums or releases is to use types of social media.

ROUGH CUT

Our Ideal Audience

At the heart of every music video is the idea of promotion, to be able to reach out to the audience and promote the artist or band and therefore sell tracks and albums. However to be able to do this you must be able to relate to the audience and showcase the artist in a way that appeals to them.

To do this I have looked at the type of people that listen to Pop-Indie and this is what I came up with.

I looked at five categories that I thought would us help understand what we would have to put in our video or the way we need to construct the video in a way to best suit the needs of our audience.

The five categories  were;

• Fashion- To see how we should dress the characters in the video
• Television- What kind of characteristics they look for in people they like to watch
• Interests- Whether we would be able to involve any in the video to be able to create a common ground and something they can relate to
• Make-up- What kind of make-up our characters should have, if any
• Social Points- What kind of locations we should shoot at 

23rd October - 1st Day Editing

Today we started editing our music video and have begun to look through our footage in more detail so that we could decide on which footage to use in what place and order.

Then we began by importing our Frank & Derol track into the sequence and then we started to fit different clips into the sequence.














Our aim for today as a group was to incorporate lots of cuts and fade ins with diferent clips because after watching music videos by Justin Bieber - Beauty and the Beat and One direction -  What makes you Beautiful the thing that we had learnt to make a music video successful we will have to add lots of cuts and short shorts to keep the audience fixated.

In the first minute of the music video there are over 28 cuts.

In first minute there are 35 cuts

The Shoot Issues- Wednesday 17th

On Wednesday the 17th we did the shoot for our music video, during the course of the day we were faced with numerous issues and problems however in most cases we were able to find resolution.
Before we began the actual shoot we did a recce of our locations and took photos, this gave us an idea of the shots that we were going to be taking.

Like previously mentions we were faced with problems throughout the course of the day, the first one was the traffic. This was a huge issue in the morning with our main character within our video as she was an hour late putting the shooting behind schedule.

The second was the public walking in front of the camera and therefore ruining the shot. this meant that we were having to repeat the same shot far more than we had predicted, again putting us behind schedule.

Some other problems we didn't anticipate were issues in the camera, these were the memory card very quickly became full so had to wait for a second to be brought to us, although this was a good thing that we were clearly getting a lot of coverage, it once again wasted time.
Another thing was the battery went flat half way through the afternoon so we had to stop filming once again to charge it up in at a near by Starbucks. This could easily been avoided if we had taken another fully charged battery with us.

Another problem we had come across was the fact that we had to have costume changes throughout the shooting and the toilets that we were using were quite far away meaning this took up time traveling back and forth, for example at one location we were 15 minutes away from the nearest toilets.

Due to lack of initial research we forgot to look at wether or not the botanical gardens were free to get into and unfortunately they were not so that location was unavailable meaning we had to find alternatives.

Thankfully none of these problems affected our shooting too much and we were able to get all the footage we need to put together a rough cut and if we find though the course of editing that there is not enough we have already planned where we can go to get some more.

Female Artist Representation

Within the music video industry female artists have a huge amount to live up to, the expectations built up by the media, their fans constant attention and no matter what they do there will always be the negative scrutiny from their critics.
As our main character in our video is female I thought I might look into the trends and conventions on how record companies present their female artist and see whether there is anything we could take and incorporate into our video.



As a starting point I looked at the industry as a whole to be able to get a general idea, and what i found was very interesting. It was the idea of 're-representation' and that to stay interesting and popular you have to keep re-inventing yourself.
Examples of this are artists such as Katy Perry and Rihanna who in each of their videos seem to take on a completely different persona.
For example within Katy Perry's videos she seems to have numerous characters, the erotic candy queen in 'California Girls', the classic teenage geek in 'Last Friday Night' and the stop bullying campaigner in 'Firework'. All of these 'people' are try different to one another. tho ensures she reaches out to as much of the market as possible and enabling her to branch out her audience.


Although this seemed to be the general trend in the mainstream music videos when I was looking more specifically at our genre, Indie-Pop, it seemed to be a very different story as each of the female artists had one very established and very recognisable character. This allows the fans to feel as if by watching the videos they are learning something new about the artists and thus feeling connected to them.
Despite them all following this convention each artist is very individual themselves. For example Lana Del Rey always seems to be victimised or a damsel in distress where as the lead vocalist form Florence and the Machine is very quirky.

Marina


Lana Del Rey

Digipak Analysis: Alternative Rock

Costume plan

The costume we plan to use for our filming day are;

Parker Trench Coat
Flowery dress
Converse/Leather Boots/Pumps
Skinny jeans
Oversized jumper
3 different tops for the male actor
- Checked shirt jumper ( indie look)
Grey beanie hat
Big umbrella
Makeup
Makeup wipes

Makeup

The makeup look we are aiming to use on our female performer has to give an indie look.

Examples of Indie styled celebrities and their makeup are;

 FRANK AND DEROL

ELLIE GOULDING

FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE

PALOMA FAITH







The conventional looks involve, looking natural, rosy cheeks,  pale lips and dark liquid eyeliner on the top of the eyes

Weather Update

I have decided to do a weather update for a scheduled shooting day so that its more reliable than the weather forecast we had researched in the previous week for Wednesday 17th October.

As you can see the weather for a scheduled shooting day is a mixture of cloud, sun and rain which means that we may have to take umbrellas, spare clothes to our shooting locations. Also it gives my group an idea on what we may need to do with editing by possibly brightening the shots so that it looks sunnier.

Focused or Ambient Audiences

Audience Research

To get some feedback for our chosen song Frank & Derol. I decided that the best place to gain the feedback would be to go onto social networking sites such as Facebook and ask questions to the public on what they thought about the song.

Some of the questions we asked consisted of some qualitative research, where we posted a track onto my Facebook page where then i sent a group message to all my contacts asking them to watch the YouTube link of our Frank and Derol song Barely Love You Too.

 Some of the questions I decided to ask my selected group of people were;

• Did you like the track
• What kind of music video to you expect to accompany the music
• Where can you imagine it being shot
• Which age range would you typically associate with this song.
• How would you picture the lead singer/ singers

The responses we got were very successful and helpful for us:

' The song is quite chilled, so maybe you should have a slow preppy feeling to your music video'

' The Frank & Derol song you posted give me the feeling that 2 indie girls would be singing it, reminds me a bit of Ellie Goulding, and i would range the age from 14 - 24 years.'

' By listening to the track you posted Martha, I can definitely imagine the music video being played in Cambridge as I can imagine it being shot near all the colleges and river area.'

' Even though there are 2 people in the name, 'Frank' and 'Derol' the voices seem exactly the same so it wouldn't matter if you used 1 female performer, I can also imagine the performer to be very fresh faced, skinny jeans and maybe slightly auburn hair, maybe strawberry blonde'

' I can imagine the music video being somewhat dream like, a very lighted, enchanted looking setting.'

By looking at some of the comments people responded to me it helped me gain a better understanding of what the target audience wanted to listen to.

Due to all the people that participated in my questionnaire were all between the ages 14-24 years i have decided to use that guideline for the target  audience ages. Also by one of the people who participated in the the Facebook questionnaire said about possibly using 1 singer could be used and thought about seriously.

Also the comments about the location have intrigued me as we didn't really know where the target audience would like the music video to take place, and the comments of it being in Cambridge  by the river, college areas it has matched out locations that we have selected to shoot our music video therefore we know that our location for our music video with be very pleasing to our target audience.

Theoretical study into audience

Uses and gratifications
Blumler and Katz argued that audiences are ACTIVE not PASSIVE and approached and use media products for the following reasons.

1. Diversion
(a form of escaping from the pressures of every day)

2. Personal relationships
(where the viewer gains companionship, either with the television characters, or through conversations with others abut television)

3. Personal Identity
(where the viewer is able to compare their life with the lives of the characters and situations on television, to explore, re-affirm or question their personal identity)

4. Surveillance
(where the media are looked upon for a supply of information about what is happening in the world)


THESE IDEAS ARE RELEVANT TO OUR MUSIC VIDEO AS WE AIM TO APPLY THEM TO OUR PRODUCTION TO INCREASE AUDIENCE ENJOYMENT.

1. We are aiming to entertain the audience through the narrative we are using. Also the lyrics will link to the visuals keeping an interest and the effects will be a vintage/ old looking theme giving the picture a more film reel look.

2. We feel the video will be interesting and individual enough to be discussed within a group of people who are  fans of the artist and music genre. Also we will have a lot of performing scenes throughout the music video as well as the narrative which will act as the creation of companionship between the artist and the viewer.

3. This is a given idea with our music video as the audience will automatically compare their lives or experiences they have had to the characters on screen. This will allow them to explore, re-affirm or question their personal identity by comparing maybe how they reacted in a similar situation or maybe their own opinion on what is happening in the video.


4. The music video will demonstrate conventions of the indie-pop genre and some of the fashions and styles it includes and in this way it includes a lot of useful information.

Frank + Derol

Indie Pop Genre - Background

What To Bring on Filming Day

List of equipment/props etc. we will need on our filming day:

• Video camera - will be picked up from college the morning of filming
• Light - same as video camera
• Camera - to take pictures of the process in order to help us with our blog (Andrea)
• Changes of costume for the actors (Scarlett and James)
• Story board - to ensure we will get all of the coverage required
• Umbrellas (in case it rains)

Brainstorm

Past Student Video

We have looked at past student's videos for inspiration.

We have come across 13Q1-09 's music video

We have decided that this video is similar to our idea and have drawn certain points from it to use in our own video.

• We like the filter used over the 'memory scenes'
• We like the idea of the characters filming each other on a hand held camera. This gives the idea of a home video, giving a more intimate feel to the video.
• We also liked the element of the performance in the video

Schedule - In Detail

We will be filming on  the 17th of October, Wednesday. The whole group will be availiable from 11am- 6pm including our cast.

This means that we should only need the film camera for 1 night as we should get all our footage on Wednesday.

9am- Andrea, Chloe, Martha and Scarlett meet at college and collect the camera

We will then travel to City Centre market

9:30am- Arrive at City Centre market and film our footage of Scarlett

10am- Walk around the alleys near the market and do our filming
 - walk to King's college and film Scarlett there
 - walk to Mill Pond to film
 - walk to Keyside to film

11am- Elena will join us

- Botanical gardens

- 12:50pm James will join us

- We will then capture all or footage with James and Scarlett and visit all the previous locations

- We will then walk to Newnam if we have time in order to get additional coverage

Pitch Presentation

Production Booklet: Cambridge

To prepare for our shoot of the music video, I filled out a production booklet that we created to make our all aspects of our shoot as organized as possible.


This is an image of the booklet we used, containing all of the information inside.









First, I filled in a checklist for the location recce, where we were going during the shoot within Cambridge and what we would need (props, make-up, costume, equipment) during the day of the shoot.





















I then filled out a risk assessment page in relation to this, writing down anything that could be a danger or hazard during shooting and how we could minimalise the risks.










I created a shot list of all of all of the ideas we had come up with as a group for shots we would want in the video. Tis benefited us on the day as it meant we could record ideas that we had already come up with instead of creating shots and frames at the shoot.








Then for each scene I decided to sketch out a rough image of each of the shots that we had thought of. This gave us a physical image that we could work from to translate to a real-life shot.


Market Square








Colleges/ Universities












Stairs
 










Bridge












Entrance to Kings College












This organisation and preparation was extremely beneficial to us on the day. Not only did it mean that we had a plan to follow and got shots done in less time, it also meant that the shots we got specifically fitted the ideas we had created in pre production sessions and did them with greater efficiency and organisation than we would have done without a plan or production booklet.

Six Stills

By doing this task it got me thinking about the music videos within the industry presently and to see whether there was/is anything we would like to replicate in our video.

Of Monsters and Men – Small Talk   (2012)

I really like this video in general as it is so different to all the other generic videos that are being played but still fits to the genre of music.

I also like the way that the animation is simplistic and resembles that of Chinese puppetry also the colours are dull bar one spark that gives the audience something to focus on as well as the music. However in contrast to the epic story line again gives the viewer something to follow and puts the band members into the super hero category implying they can manage in situation.

From this I found that not following the norm can make a refreshing change and thus engages the audience into the video.

Beyoncé- I Was Here   (2012)

I chose this still as the epic graphics projection really puts the whole meaning of the song into context. Due to the positioning of Beyoncé in the bottom right hand corner and the extreme long shot it demonstrates to the viewer that despite her huge status in the music industry and being a house hold name in the scheme of things she is miniscule and her singing career will not make a difference in the world current crisis’.

In addition due to the use of the graphics being so spectacular this allows the audience to engage with the video especially to her fan’s as this is so out of the mould of what she normally does, which is simplistic songs about breakups and boys thus making the audience more aware of the serious meanings and messages within the song.

From this video I have found that if the song lyrics that have a strong, hard hitting meanings then the video should enhance it and match then rather than distracting the viewer from it.

Rita Ora- How We Do  (2012)

This shot of Rita Ora is during the chorus of her new song, ‘How We Do’, in which her and friends are partying and making the most of their youth. I chose this particular shot as Rita is looking directly into the shot and thus making the viewer feel involved in the scene. As she is, also, surrounded by friends this makes the scene more lively and highlighting the partying atmosphere she is trying to create.

What I have learnt from this music video is to use mise en scene to elevate the message/story that is trying to be pursued within the video and that using eye contact, by looking directly at the camera, creates a connection between the artist and audience thus making the video more appealing.

Ben Howard- Keep Your Head Up   (2012)

This music video with Ben Howard is very organic with no special effects and the camera work being natural and trying to replicate how and where someone would look if they had been there, thus making the viewer feel involved in the fun and happy atmosphere with he is also trying to create within the lyrics of the song. In addition the lighting is shot at dusk adding to the natural and organic feel but also creates a romantic concept appealing to his female audience in a subtle, discrete manor.

What I have learnt from this video is that they style and atmosphere should correspond with the genre of the music to prevent the viewer from getting mixed signals and to try to appeal to specific audience in way that is not obvious.

B.o.B (ft Taylor Swift)- Both of Us    (2012)

I really like this still from B.o.B’s song Both of Us as the song is about being strong and keeping those we love above danger and instead of him conforming to the cliché that most of us were thinking about he decides to go down the road of family giving the viewer a new fresh look into the meaning of the song. as the lighting is slightly muted it gives the viewer the idea that those within the shot are in a supressed environment but as they sit with their family and you are able to see the happiness they have with each other and their surroundings are irrelevant.

From this I have learnt that you should always try to find new ways to explore and express the song.

The Script- Hall Of Fame     (2012)

I like this still as due to the lighting and the use of the old warehouse the dramatic atmosphere that is created in the beats of the song is elevated. Also as it is a long shot you are able to see the whole of the setting and the band allowing the viewer feel as if they are at a concert. As the lighting is done using spots it picks up the dust in the air adding to the atmosphere.

The rustic, beaten down setting also elevates the lyrics and suits far better than if the band were shot playing in a clean and generic studio.

Locations

Potential locations (in Cambridge) for our music video are:

• Botanical gardens
• Mill pond
• Keyside
• Newnham
• City Center Market 
• Kings College 
• Alleys within the City centre

As all of our locations are outside, we have checked the weather forecast for the day we are filming. As it is a week away, we cannot have an exact forecast. However, we have a rough idea of what the weather will be like.

All of our locations are relatively close to one another and if they are not within walking distance we can easily get a bus as in cambridge they run regularly. 

Preliminary Music Video

planning

We decided to research what the weather would be in the next 10 days, for our day of shooting as the majority of our music video will be outside.

We have planned that we can use exposure on the camera to help the lighting issue if the weather is cloudy on the day of shooting.

Vintage Filter Tutorial

Within our music video we want to put a vintage twist on it in a similar way to the effects within Lana Del Rey's video for 'Videos Games'.

We have found a tutorial on Youtube which explains how to achieved our desired effect.
However there is an issue with this as the tutorial only works for Final Cut Pro but at the present time we only have access to Express. To resolve this we are going to attempt to find alternatives.

We tried to do the same effect with just the colour corrector in FC Express. We increased the red to give a red shade to the shadows and increased the black to add more contrast.

BEFORE

AFTER

It's fairly easy to do but we'll have to use test footage to see how effective it is and look at other effects as well.

Preliminary digipak ideas

This was our first attempt at making our own digipak based on the song 'Gold' by Spandau Ballet. This went alongside the music video that we created for the song.

Digipak Analysis

Different genres have different conventions for their digipaks. It is important that we know the conventions for different genres in order for us to make a suitable digipak for our product. I am going to look at several digipaks in the genre of "indie pop" and study the conventions apparent. We will then use these conventions while creating our digipak for the same genre.

Ellie Goulding - Lights

The artist is quite clearly the main focus of this digipak. This suggests that conventionally within this genre, the artist is made to be the main focus and attraction for their audience.
The title of the album in also reflected through the album artwork. This gives the album a unique selling point and quirky visual effects to appeal to the audience. This album cover is quite simple, yet because the artist is well known it is an effective album as it will appeal to her existing fans and intrigue new ones interested in the genre.
The back cover of the digipak is also quite simple and understated. This continues the theme.

 

Lana Del Rey - Born to Die

Once again, the artist is the main focus for the cover of the album. I have noticed that both Ellie Goulding and Lana Del Rey have photographs of mainly their faces. This is interesting as they are not using "sex appeal" to attract their audience. This is also a hint towards the genre of music. Both artists do not have dance routines or large productions to their performances, they are focused on the music.
The colours on this digipak are used subtly to mimic the American flag. I think this is important as this is a running theme throughout the album. For example, one of the songs is called "National Anthem" and the American flag is the backdrop to one of the scenes in her video for " Born to Die".

The album artwork therefore acts as a subtle hint towards the music featured on the album, although it is not clear to all. The digipak also has a vintage feel to it, which gives a hint to the type of music on the album.



Marina and the Diamonds - Electra Heart

The artist is yet again, the main focus of the album cover. However, intertextuality is used within her album and is therefore reflected in the digipak. She uses Madonna as her influence within this album for example one of her songs is called "Primadonna". She uses this famous look on her album and throughout many of her music videos. However, she has her own spin to it so she is not simply copying her style.


This digipak, much like Lana Del Rey's has a vintage Hollywood feel to it through the filters used.
The font on this digipak also has a Hollywood feel to it. It is bold and once again, the size of the artist's name is larger than the album title. This seems to be conventional for the "indie pop" genre.



Florence and the Machine - Lungs

Following conventions once again, a shot of the artist is used for the front cover of the digipak. A vintage feel is yet again used for this album.
The album title is yet again taken from one of the songs on the album.
Much like Ellie Goulding's digipak, the title of the album is the theme. "Lungs are used as the main feature of both the front and back cover.
This digipak goes against conventions in the sense that the artist's name is smaller than the album title. However, as "lungs" are the main focus of the digipak, this seems relevant and justified.
The font used is the artist's own signature font, used on merchandise etc. which gives authenticity to the album.




Conventions:

• A close up shot of the artist
• A vintage filter
• The artist's name is larger than the album title
• The album title taken from a song on the album
• A theme from the album to be portrayed somehow on the digipak