Roles within the group

Director: Sofie
Camera operator: Alice, Chloe and Sofie (We are all going to hope to take a part in the filming process, when Alice is not being filmed she will be helping and operating the cameras)
Actress: Alice
Producer: Alice, Chloe and Sofie (We all thought of the vision for our music video therefore we are all producers)
Creative Director: Sofie and Alice
Editor: Chloe

Subsidiary Task: Digipak Planning

As the image shows when the digipak is fully constructed the inside right panel will hold the disc in a pouch.
The back cover will have the songs listed and their order on the CD this is conventional to nearly as digipaks I have seen, as is having the album art/cover design  on the front page that conveys a message or suggests something about the music or album. The inside left panel will have information about the artist alongside a personal message/letter of thanks. As this template would open out like a book on the opposite side there will be a variety of pictures and lyrics for the tracks on the CD.
In order for our digipak to be conventional to the style of music our artist plays, we have decided that it would be best to create a piece of cover art for the album ourselves, therefore we will begin to look at existing covers to see the typical conventions.

We have thought of a few different ideas to use for our cover art of the album.

1.  We will take this image ourselves and edit the photo to say 'Balance' on the main focus.

Although it does seem like a random idea that has no connection to the song and the type of artist. We feel it does. Firstly the song 'Balance' is about the progression of a relationship through which there are a number of different emotions felt, these are conveyed by the pile of love hearts. The main focus is of just one love heart that shows that one feeling overcomes all the others love, which is why we feel the sweets 'Love Hearts' were a good object to use.

2. There will be the words 'Balance' and the artists name Billy Lockett somehow connected on a scrabble board
This was a fairly obscure idea that came from Alice. The idea being that as a young new couple they may play games like this as they have little money and little to keep them busy.

3. This is an extremely simple example of what we want to achieve. We are going to use real fridge magnets with some of the text in capital letters and of varying colours.

This idea came from the idea of the couple moving into their first home, but we also wanted an element of randomness to the image. So we thought that fridge magnets were a good idea because as a couple they may leave little messages to one another.

4. We have the idea also of having someone draw/sketch this type of thing with a guitar balancing on a stool. This is a rough example and the end result would be much better than this.

After looking at examples of other indie artists album covers we realised that it was quite conventional to have a drawing/artwork as oppose to a photograph. We googled balance and an image of a elephant balancing on a stool appeared, this immediately intrigued us so we started thinking about ideas we could develop from this. We came to the idea of a guitar balancing on a stool, and we have asked an art student to replicate this image but better.

Decisions about the Music Video

We will begin the filming of our music video in the half term, where hopefully we should be able to film all of the footage leaving us the remaining of the time to edit the video and complete our subsidiary task

Ideology

Ideologies are a system of values, attitudes and beliefs that help define and explain the world around us. They are important or true to an individual or group. 

Dominant Ideologies
These particular ideologies are repeatedly used by big institutions for example; the government  the media and education systems. They can be ideas about gender, social groups and even the economy. Although we aren't aware of it, they exist in our day-to-day lives and we except them as normal and not many people question the 'norm'. 

How does this relate to media?
Like everything else media texts have representations and beliefs which we aren't necessarily aware of. Media texts will generally convey ideologies and even create them occasionally because they are available to so many people nation or world wide. For example the portrayal of women within the media through time, traditionally females were seen as vunerable and weak. Although in recent media women have become much stronger characters.
Media texts are able to convey certain ideologies because of their connection to the mass audiences, in several different mediums. According to audience theories like 'Two Step Flow' and 'Hypodermic Needle Model' the mass audience absorb this information and are influenced by this.

My Coursework
There are some ideologies that can be considered quite controversial, therefore for my media text I wanted a positive portrayal of both the characters. My narrative has generally equally represented the two genres.

Target Audience

Age:
15-25 years old as they are more likely to listen to the music and have the time to go to gigs. Also this face range fits with the demographic of radio stations that tend to play music by this artist.
The artist themselves are within this age so consequently appeals to those of a similar age to himself.

Gender:
Mixed gender as there is nothing that stereotypes genders. His songs aren't "pop" songs that attract a mainly female audience because of the nature of the artist and the songs. However he is not singing songs/his music that will attract an only male audience.

Lifestyle:
Generally will be students who have a part time Jo therefore have time to attend gigs. They will refe local smal gigs as opposed to pop concerts in big arenas. They are therefore interested in music that isn't mainstream but has the potential to become popular. They will most probably have a small group of friends with quite a similar music taste, that will quite regularily attend small music festivals. Also someone within our audience range will often use music sharing websites like spotify. 

Interests:
They may play a musical instrument and be generally quite artistic because of the style of music. Also they will be intellectual to understand some of the lyrics, but most of all they need to be interested in music!

Socio-economic group:
The audience for this particular artist/style of music would be in group D & C, this would be down to the fact that they have a lack of money to spend on songs and gigs. We have already stated how we believe that the age is likely to be 15-25 and they are generally to be university students. This relates to the grouping as students are automatically in group D.

Why?
The genre of music we have chosen to represent in our music video is a growing style of music that used to attract small niche audiences that would only grow through the word of mouth. However now this particular genre is becoming more popular due to the increased publicity of artists within the genre like 'Mumford and Sons' and ' Ben Howard'. So the growing popularity means it appeals to aq wider audience that it ever has previously.

First draft of our Storyboard

Influential Directors

Ruskin Kyle
He is part of Rivers Rush film and photography production and he has directed music videos as well as film trailers.
His popularity increased after he directed Ed Sheeran's 'The A Team' which reached 25 million you tube views that reached global audiences.
He seems to direct music videos for Indie artists similar to the style of music we will be creating a music video for, therefore I feel it will be very important to look at some of his work and see the style of music videos he creates.



Charlie and Joe
This production company make commercials, music videos and fashion films. They have clients like topshop for adverts which is good to look into because the target audience for our genre of music is likely going to be the same type of people to be shopping in topshop. This means that even though that particular example isn't a music video I could still take away features that connect with the target audience.
They have directed music videos for Aiden Grimshaw and The Maccabees, which both fall under the indie genre of music, similar to our chosen artist.

Subsidiary Task: Digipak Research

A digipak is a paper or card case that holds the disk, it also provides the customer information that is relevant. For example lyrics, images of the artist, sometimes tour dates, information and occasionally a message from the artist. A digipak is more environmentally friendly than a plastic CD case and does not crack or break as easily as a plastic case. 
  

 

Ideas for the song

After listening to the song our first ideas became quite clear. We all interpreted the song in the same ways but all had varied ideas that we were able combine to create a good basic plan to our music video.
The concept being that we have two different sections to the music video; a narrative part and a performance element. The two sections will have different characters and we believe this is quite conventional to the genre and this style is becoming much more popular.

1. Close up of the guitar
2. Walk away from the camera to show a story.
3. The two characters meeting in a bar/pub
4. They walk towards the camera and it cuts to the next scene
5. Walking through a field with dog.
6. Back to walking down the street with the guitar.
7. Live Footage
8. Unloading the car and moving into a new home, he runs back to get the guitar.
9. Sitting in an empty room
10. Photoframe of pictures of them together
11. Live Footage
12. She cheers up the male character
13. Walking down the street with the guitar
14. Holding hands and spinning
15. Trampoline, stop motion photos.
16. Live Footage
17. Undecided
18. Two of them in shot.

Subsidiary Task Choices

Alongside our music video we musty choose two subsidiary tasks to complete. As a group we have decided to create a website for the music artist and a digipack for the artists album. We choose to do these tasks as we felt they would challenge us to work the hardest we possibly could to create a professional looking product.

The basic concept

After to listening to the song several times separately and creating the ideas in our head and how we picture the music video to look like. Then as a group we took it in turns to express how we picture it and then adapted our ideas to conclude that in the music video there will be:

• Live footage
• A relationship progressing
•  No lip-syncing other than the live footage

Song Lyrics

I'm not a wild man
And I'm not a crazy guy
But I know I'm genuine
So sit and watch I'll tell you why
And I'm not a superhero
And I'm not a movie star
But when you're around
I make you feel like you are
Like you are

So let's go to the attic
Let's go to the shops
Let's grab the old red carpet
Wear the dress with polka dots
And pretend that we're stars
walking down Leicester Square
Or actors in a movie
On a secret love affair
Love affair

So stick by me and I'll tell you
There's light at the end
Stick by me and I'll show you
That all you need is a friend
So don't balance out the window
And smirk with your eyes
Don't balance on a spindle
And smile when you know I'm uptight

We're sitting in this empty room
With no furniture
And the money's running low
And the future is a blur
And I know it won't be easy
But please just wait and see
One day we'll be where we want to be
Want to be

So stick by me and I'll tell you
There's light at the end
Stick by me and I'll show you
That all you need is a friend
So don't balance out the window
And smirk with your eyes
Don't balance on a spindle
And smile when you know I'm uptight

Take my hand
And spin me around
Dance like a fool
Dance, dance around
Take my hand
And spin me around
Dance like a fool
Dance, dance around
Take my hand and spin me around
And dance like a fool
Dance, dance around

So stick by me and I'll tell you
There's light at the end
Stick by me and I'll show you
That all you need is a friend
So don't balance out the window
And smirk with your eyes
Don't balance on a spindle
And smile when you know I'm uptight

The lyrics have been the basis of most of our ideas, when unsure of what should come next initially in the planning of our music video we used the lyrics to link with the visuals on screen. This is something that Andrew Goodwin lists in his method of analysis music videos and something we all viewed as important. The lyrics to the song had to relate to the story/narrative in the video otherwise you leave the target audience confused and unsure of what is happening.  

Our Chosen Song

I have chosen that I will work as part of a group for this coursework task. This is because I believe that splitting up tasks and having a group creating ideas will make the music video the best it can possibly be. I am working with Alice and Sofie to create this piece and we are all very reliable people and therefore should work well together as we are all very dedicated to making this the best it can be.

Our chosen song is one that we all agree on and the artist is unknown. He describes himself as an Indie rock/pop artist. His song Balance is a great song and one that does not have a music video, meaning that all of our ideas will be individual and original as they have nothing to be based upon. Although they will be original we will take influence and ideas from existing texts of a similar genre as it will allow us to make a great music video.
Balance

Digital Technology

Andrew Goodwin's Method of Analysis

Andrew Goodwin in 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory' describes characteristics of music videos.

1.  Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics: a dance routine for a pop artist

2.  A relationship between the lyrics and visuals: this can be subtle or it can be very over exaggerated

3.  A relationship between music and visuals: some will contradict the song but most will amplify the feeling of the song

4.  The record label will demand inclusion of close ups and develop a visual style and motifs throughout: many music artists will have a visual style for their videos

5.  References to particular erotic treatment of the female body: This is quite apparent in rap.  in my opinion this is dependant of the genre and sometimes men are used similarly. 

6.  There are often intertextual references: this can be to a film, TV programme or other music videos.

Conventions of different genres

Today we looked at conventions two different genres; rap and indie. They have a very contrasting ideas and very different audiences therefore this shows the importance of knowing your target audience and making something relevant to them.

Rap

• Cars
• Glamorous girls
• Hand gestures
• Big crowds
• Objectifying women
• Urban settings
• Black people
• Sportswear

Indie

• Instruments
• Well dressed
• Calm and not aggressive
• Simple video, with a random concept
• High production
• Artistic and imaginative
• No sexism

The two genres we looked at are complete contrast  but it does prove that there are clear conventions to genres that often come from the type of person the artist is.

History of music videos

A music video is simply a short film that accompanies a piece of music, generally a song. The more recent music videos are used as a marketing device to promote the artist/song. They become popular after the first music channel, MTV, in the 1980's. Different music videos have varied techniques for example; live footage and animations.

1902-1917: The phonoscène era:Phonoscene was an early version of a music video where sound and film were combined with actors lip syncing to the sound recording.

1926-1959: Talkies, soundies, and shorts:A number if shot films were produced due to the arrival of 'talkies'. The first musical video series was Spooney Melodies in 1930. Also early forms of music videos were referred to as "promotional clips'' in the 1940.

1960–1967: Visual innovation: A visual jukebox was invented in France meaning many french artist began creating short films. "Travelin' Man" was directed and edited by Ozzie Nelson for his son in 1961 and it linked the lyrics with the images. Jan & Dean's "Surf City" was one of the first top 40 hits with a video. This was shortly followed by The Animal's "House Of The Rising Sun" which had the group lip-synching.

1967–1973: Promotional clips grow: A clip for Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues" was featured in a film documentary Don't Look Back. 

1974–1980 –Music television: The British TV show Top of the Pops began playing music videos although restrictions were put on the amount of 'outsourced' videos. This meant that a good video could increase the sale of a song so that viewers were able to see the video again the next week.

1981–1991: Music videos go mainstream: In 1981, MTV launched with "Video Killed the Radio Star" and this was the first 24 hour a day music video channel. This meant that more focus was put onto artists music videos. In 1983 an influential and iconic music video was released "Thriller" by Micheal Jackson, this video set standards for other music videos of the era having cost $500,000 to film.

1992–2004: Rise of the directors: Towards the end of 1992 MTV listed directors with the artist and song credits, meaning that the focus had turned to the director. It enabled some of the music video directors to go on and direct feature length films.

2005–present: The Internet becomes video-friendly: Youtube was launched in 2005, which made viewing online videos much faster. This even resulted in some unknown artists who posted their work onto youtube to become successful as a result of mediums such as YouTube.
2005 saw the launch of the website YouTube, which made the viewing of online video much faster and

 

Music Video - Textual Analysis 3

The music video for this song proved extremely popular, and continues to be influential for many artists. It breaks conventions by having little lip synching, relying on the narrative to tell the story of the song. The video guides us through the lives of the stories, compellign us to feel emotion for every character, through the use of flashbacks and interestign camera angles/editing techniques such as establishing shots, cutaways and extreme close ups. These explain the lyrics and guide the audience through the song. I really like the use of flashbacks and emotive themes, and plan to emulate this in my own work. 

One convention which is adhered to is the exploration of a relationship - although this is a little more complicated than most (with more than two main characters), and this matches the lyrics of the song. 

Personally, I found the 'live' section of this video particularly effective, where the band is seen to be performing the song in a believable setting, as it fits smoothly with the song and provides more interest for the viewer. I plan to use this idea in my own video - using live footage of the artist (collected personally) for certain sections of the song, as this can be used instead of lip synching in order to create a professal looking video; if lip synching is not done properly it has the tendency to look amateur. 

Music Video - Textual Analysis 2

After watching the music video to Daniel Powter's 'Cupid' several times, certain conventions have become apparent to me and have inspired some ideas for the music video that I will be creating. 

The video has three sections to it, showing the development in the relationship of the couple. As well as this, there are another two parts to the video but in a different way; the first part is the lip-syncing of the artist and the second is the 'story' which the artist is telling through the song, shown on screen by the talent. 

The video opens with a panning shot on the female talent but cuts to the artist, Daniel Powter, lip-syncing on the beach. The fact that the artist is on the beach whilst singing is symbolic of the idea that he is taking the viewers on a journey of his relationship; the story which we are shown of the talent, portrays the flashbacks that the artist is having. This is a convention used in many music videos for love songs and is a convention which I think would help our music video to be successful due to the fact that if the song is about a relationship, as a general rule, the audience will want to be shown the relationship. It will help the audience to understand the real meaning behind the song and hopefully convey the message we intend; 'no matter how little you have, you'll always have each other'.

I like the convention of the artist taking the audience on a journey of the relationship; in 'Cupid', Daniel Powter is singing the song on the beach whilst the audience see his 'flashbacks' of his life. I think that we are going to use this convention in a very similar way in our music video; this is because 'Balance' is a love song, so we are going to have the male talent playing his guitar walking down the street, taking the audience on a journey of his relationship.

Another convention used in 'Cupid' is the presence of the artist in the video. There are some Indie music videos which choose to not have the artist in, such as Ed Sheeran's 'The A Team', but mostly they tend to have the artist. I personally like the presence of the artist in any music video because I think it portrays the 'story' better. We will be using this convention in our music video as it is one which is used in the majority of music videos, and due to the fact that we are aiming to make a successful music video, I think it is important that we follow such crucial conventions. As Billy Lockett, the artist of the song we are creating a video for, is unsigned and is from our local area, it was fairly easy for us to get in contact with him. We explained what we had to do for our coursework and he invited us to film him singing live in concert in October (FROM THE SIDE OF THE STAGE!!). 

When the talent are in the bedroom, half of the shot is cut off by the sun-shining through the window. The first time I saw this kind of thing happen in a music video I didn't think anything of it. However, as I have watched hundreds (literally) since then it has become apparent that it is a convention which many music videos, made for a love song, use. I think it is to symbolise the happiness of the relationship, due to the fact that the sun is associated with happy memories. I really like this convention, not only because of the representations, but because it just looks so good..not really a reason to use it, but then again people these days are drawn to music videos because of their looks and not just the song. 

The talent in 'Cupid' only ever make eye contact with the camera once, and this is when they are looking at the house they have just brought. We will definitely stick to the convention of not having the talent look at the camera because they are supposed to be in a 'flashback' rather than 'performing' to the camera. In addition to this, as we are using live footage rather than have the artist performing to the camera, he will rarely look at the camera either as our music video is the idea of the artist remembering how his relationship started whilst making it vivid enough for the audience to be taken on the 'journey' too. 

Lastly, a convention used in 'Cupid' which I really like is the fact that the talent 'get older' to portray that the couple have grown old together. I think that this is a really nice touch and a great way to illustrate the message of the song. This however, is not a possible convention for our music video as we do not have such a vast talent available to us. If we were to have a longer period of time and even some sort of budget, it may be possible, but with the criteria we have, we're taking a different path. 

Overall, I think that Daniel Powter's 'Cupid' music video is a really good example of the kind of music video that we would like to create and the message that we would like to send to our audience. Therefore I think that we will be referring back to this quite a bit when storyboarding, producing and editing our own music video.

Music Video - Textual Analysis 1

Aiden Grimshaw- Curtain Call

By analysing the contents of this music video we can see there are conventions for this genre of music. Generally this style of music will have a lack of lip synching and direct eye contact with the camera. I believe that they lack this direct contact because it is a convention of pop music, like One Direction's "What Makes You Beautiful" and Jessie J's "Price Tag". It seems like this particular genre is trying to avoid being a pop genre, and trying to be different to the pop music videos. From analysis of this music video and watching others more generally another convention is to have a story behind the video, for example in this they are having fun and falling in love. However this genre seem to do this slightly differently to other videos, for example performance style videos still have a story behind them usually where the artist is portraying the overall feel of the song. Although in a Narrative style video, like this, there is usually parts of no lip synching where other characters will run alongside the song to tell a story.

The cuts in the music video seem to work with the beats of the song. At the start of the video the music is quite slow and therefore so are the cuts, as the song builds momentum the cuts become faster and the clips become shorter. Also the start of the video is quite dull and dark lighting wise, whereas as the song builds momentum the sun comes out and the lighting is much brighter. This is something we would wish to achieve in our music video because it seems to have more continuity if the cuts match with the song. Our song seems to stay at the same level all the time and therefore we may not be able to reciprocate the cuts becoming faster when the song is faster.

Another convention I have established in narrative music videos is that although the song is only a couple of minutes long, the story lasts a longer length of time. For instance this one seems to be a whole day or a few hours with the characters. For our music video we hope to create the time frame of a year or two which is longer than this particular video does but is similar to other videos we have seen.

We have learnt a lot from this music video, we feel that the narrative characters acting out a story alongside the artist performing the song works well. However we would only use one story-line to run alongside it because if we had three like this example, it could become difficult to film as there will be a lot of organising of talent and we would need to spend a large amount of time on the filming of our video in order for it to work. So we would only have one set of characters that are continued throughout the whole video. Most importantly this music video showed us that you do not have to include lip synching throughout the whole video in order for it to be successful. Throughout the whole 4 minute video the artist only appears for roughly 30 seconds of it. This is becoming a convention of this style of music and is something we wish to reciprocate in our own music video.