Initial Charactor profile

The Psychologist - This character will be the brains behind the documentary, what she says will give weight to what we are saying. Essentially, like nearly every documentary, we need someone to explain the 'science' behind our main character and his condition. We thought for this character we would get a psychology teacher as they will have the knowledge already to talk about any condition our main character might have.

The Main Character - Documentaries tell a story, and so, with the nature of our documentary, it might be that the audience develops a relationship with the main person. It is likely they will feel sympathetic towards them, and this is likely what we will try to achieve.

The Family Member - Again, this character will help to add weight to the documentary, a bit of emotion. This may make the audience more sympathetic towards the main character, or depending on how they answer the interview questions, may help the audience to see a different side to the situation e.g. is the main character actually quite cruel to obsess over his search and cut off his own family?

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Location Ideas

For our short film/documentary there are two main locations; the house which is meant to be David's house where the interviewer will meet David and speak to him. The other main location is the place that David dreamt he met this person and where he goes to wait for the person every day.

For David's house we looked at a couple of different locations, two in Hethersett, one in Wymondham, both of which were either houses of friends or one of our own. However two of these three houses we looked at were very typically suburban and on larger estates surrounded by many other houses. One of them was a smaller cottage, although it was surrounded by other houses it looks way more of an individual house and has an overgrown garden. This we felt was a perfect setting for David's house. This is because, due to his mix up of reality with dreams, we wanted to portray David as not quite your normal person and therefore we required a house that did not look like an every day typical suburban house on an estate. In addition, the overgrown garden we felt we could use to show how David's dream of meeting this person has overgrown into a reality for him and, like the overgrown garden, has got a bit out of control. Also the house is quite simply decorated so if we wanted to decorate it in any particular way or add any props into the house it would be relatively easy to do. This is what the house looks like inside and out:

     

        

Furthermore, the house is in Hethersett so it is easily accessible to us all making filming there easy. 

Our second location we are using is central Norwich. This will be where we film the scenes in which David takes us to the place that he dreamed he met the person. We decided to go for a busy place like central Norwich rather than a secluded place as we wanted to show that you could wait in a sole place all your life for someone who may never come whilst everyone else around you moves on in life without waiting around - that is what reality is like. Therefore, we needed a busy place where we could easily show lots of people moving. Norwich is the closest big city to where we live and the centre can get very busy and so we felt this was perfect to film this part of the short film/documentary. In particular, we were looking at filming around Gentlemen's Walk and outside the City Hall.

 

 

                                          

      

 

 

 

 

Any interviews we do we plan to do in an empty class room with a dark wall, this is so that it will be quiet and so that if we use lighting efficiently the dark background will look very good and similar to what you would see in a real documentary.

All these locations are quite close to each other and are all easy to reach for all members of the group. In addition myself and Emma both drive so we can also provide transport for any actors we decide to use. Also as all locations are near each other it is likely that the weather will be very similar at all locations.

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Prop List

For our coursework, as our two main locations of filming are a house and a busy street in a city centre, we do not require many props. We plan to use the natural environment of the busy city centre and the small slightly overgrown cottage house. We do not want to add anything into the environments. This is because we are making a documentary-style short film so we want it to come across as realistic, and not as if we have placed things within the environments so that it looks real. However, we do require a couple of props for certain scenes. These are those props:

 

 

Car - We need a car so that the interviewer can drive to David's house in the documentary. The car we will use is a Hyundai Getz in red. This is Jasper's car, therefore it is always available for us to use whenever we want to film. Furthermore, as Jasper will play the interviewer it is the easiest car for him to drive.

 

The other main prop we will require is a load of drawings of the person in David's dream to stick on David's wall. This is to represent David's obsession with this person in his dream and finding him. Above are the pictures we drew of the person from multiple angles to stick up on the wall of the house.
 

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Final idea

Since we decided to change our idea from a music video to a short film we have a had a few rough ideas. However, now we have a final idea.


Our final idea is a documentary-style short film focusing on a man named David who has spent his life searching and waiting for someone he met in a dream. Our documentary will feature an interviewer following David around for a day, seeing his daily routine in his search for the man he met in his dreams. This stems from our original idea of the blur between reality and dreams and some people not being able to tell the difference between what they're dreaming and what will actually happen in reality.
The documentary will feature the interviewer going to David's house to see how he lives as a result of his beliefs in his dream being reality. The interviewer will also get to know about his actual condition/belief. David will also take the interviewer into the centre of a city (in our documentary it will be Norwich) which is where he dreamt he met this man and where he goes every day to wait for him. Our documentary will also feature an interview with a psychology a-level teacher (who we will introduce as a university professor in the documentary) explaining some of the actual science behind how the brain reacts to dreams and how it can somehow confuse it with reality. It will also feature an interview with David's nephew or younger brother on how it has affected David and his interactions with his family.

All scenes of interviews/talking with David and any other characters will be linked to eachother by voice overs of the interviewer.

We are aiming to make the style of the short film/documentary very much similar to the style of Louis Theroux's documentaries where he follows round people who are the subjects in his documentaries. Not only this but we plan to use very similarly planned shots in the same way that Louis Theroux does.
This is our final idea and how we plan to achieve this idea and now we can focus on planning, storyboarding, filming and making the short film/documentary.

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Science Behind Psychosis A2 Coursework Teaser

This is just a short part of one of our interviews we filmed that i uploaded to youtube to explain the science behind our idea in our short film/documentary.

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A2 Media Coursework Trying Out Different Text Styles

These are just some different sizes, styles and positions of fonts that we tested out for use in the interview section of our short film/documentary.

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Target Audience

Who is the target audience of your product?

The short film industry seems to have it’s own target audience being somewhat a genre of it’s own. Although many people may come across short films every now and again there is a niche audience made up of mostly film makers and fans of independent films who follow the industry. With this in mind short films do not reach the majority of the population, so the target audience has already been narrowed down to creative/artsy types who interested in independent productions.  I would say that my target audience includes mature teenagers and adults; being a documentary, the plot being relatively complex may need a certain understanding of film, it's a serious topic and would have to be taken seriously and with an empathetic approach and appreciation for the art of short film, the general tone and language used would perhaps be difficult for younger audiences to understand and engage with, who may find it dull or boring.

How does your product engage with the audience?

The film should engage the audience by being an intriguing story line that makes them want to keep watching and with the sense of realism and real psychology the audience will perhaps relate the film to something within their life, wanting to understand more about the character, his story and why he is the way he is.

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Target Audience Continued

1. How will your ancillary tasks help attract your target audience?

The ancillary task such as the CD digi- pack as well as posters will significantly help attract our target audience. The design of the case should be original and showcase bright and vibrant colours which will catch the audiences attention. Within the Cd case a small insert will be made which will list song names, related imagery and lyrics. We could also create a poster to help further promote the band and music video. The poster will be either A4 or A3 in size and will be printed onto glossy paper for a premium finish. All the products made should be consistent in colours schemes and font types. This is to keep everything recognisable across the different media platforms.

We had already completed this post before changing our minds and deciding to switch over and create a short film... For short films the ancillary task includes a magazine feauture and a film poster.

A film poster will help to attract the target audiences by being technically successful; eye catching and clear. It needs to be bold, visually/aesthetically appealing to look proffessional and it must accurately reflect/relate to the film. The magizine feature will showcase the film, it must stand out and the style must relate to the poster in terms of imagery, colour scheme and font, a large image (perhaps illustrated rather than photograph as this can be more exiting to look at, inspired by the magazine Little White Lies) and snappy title will entice many audiences to continue reading the article. The artical itself must be written in an interesting, gripping, complimentary and original mannor and if possible it would be really good to relate to the lives of the reader in some way.

Furthermore, we could set up social media accounts to further promote the brand. Social media is perhaps the best platform to showcase the music video as it is instant and effective, being accessible for everyone. This could also be set up quickly and easily meaning we could update the pages and posts to advertise the final product and gain audience feedback.

By creating these ancillary products we will be able to extend the marketing of the music video and reach out to a wider range of people. The ultimate goal for the ancillary task is to mirror the media industry process from creating the idea, filming the video to selling the product to the consumer. If these products are made well will be able to gain more profit which would realistically go to the band. This is part of synergy, where each marketing campaign and process promotes another leading to more awareness of the band and its identity.

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Initial ideas

1. Continue with the Preliminary


The first idea we had was to simply build on our preliminary idea and improve it. Originally we thought that perhaps we could re-use some of our footage from our original piece, but upon discussion and review, felt that it would not be worth it and we needed to create more substance and narrative.

From this, we created a slightly new idea, sticking with the same song and actor. Our idea was that Toby (our actor) would be in a boring lesson and he begins to daydream about a world in which he is a superhero and needs to save the land. Along the way he meets his friends (that we see in the classroom) who lead him to a sort of boss battle in a tower; the boss being the evil teacher we saw in the classroom. Toby wins, his friends chant his name. This creates a sound bridge from the dream back to reality where we see it is really the teacher calling Toby's name to try to get his attention.



This idea did not go ahead as we could not gather nearly enough extras for the video, despite numerous efforts.





2. Change Our Idea Completely


Our second plan was to change our idea and move away completely from our preliminary task. This next idea was to focus on visuals and aesthetics, people driving through fog etc. We wanted it to be downbeat, mellow - the complete opposite of our preliminary. We then thought it might be easier to create if we have some sort of a narrative, we came to the idea of blurred lines between reality and the imagination. We thought that again, we could use Toby and he could be playing with toy cars and making them crash or playing with action figures and making them fight. Then, somewhere in the world, the car crash and the fight is happening. This idea would carry a strong message about the world we live in.


This idea did not go ahead as we knew that finding a song would be extremely difficult and we wanted it to look professional - not just cross cuts. We weren't sure how well we could do this, particularly with our lack of editing skills.




3. The Idea we have Now

We moved on from this idea of blurred reality onto dreams. We completely jumped away from the idea of music videos to short films. We got thinking about the idea of a 'mockumentary' and all the possibilities and clichés we could play with. Originally, we thought about the idea of a man thinking that he is stuck in a dream. However, from that we thought it would be interesting if a man had had a dream when he was younger and he has spent the rest of the life searching for a specific person he has seen in that dream. He becomes obsessive, and it affects his whole life, his relationships etc. We are looking to include interviews with his friends and family and also a psychologist.


The idea will follow a short part of the man's day - a sort of Louis Theroux type documentary.

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Consumption of music video

A few years ago, perhaps prior to 2005, consumption of music videos would have primarily been through TV on music channels. A popular one would have been MTV, occasionally shows were created out of showing music videos. For example, the popular cartoon characters Beavis and Butthead used to have a show narrating music videos. This would have most likely been the most popular, if not the only way of consuming music videos in the 80s-90s.

Nowadays there are many different options available to view music videos. Some music streaming apps e.g. Apple Music, now have the option of downloading the music video instead of just the audio. This is one way of consuming videos. Another way, probably one of the most popular options, is through YouTube. YouTube is an extremely popular video sharing website and is often the first platform artists choose to release their music on. This attracts a huge audience to consume music videos in this way. Naturally, there is still the option of watching music videos on TV on music channels such as Bliss, MTV etc. Music streaming websites also provide music videos occasionally, some artists will partner up with these sites to exclusively release their music e.g. Kanye West and Tidal.

These are the main ways music videos are consumed.

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Video Update 3.. Change of Plans

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Setting

Setting generally refers to the environment in which a media product is taking place e.g. a house, in the woods etc. It is quite an important aspect of film making and can make or break the product, depending on how fitting/well-made/well-chosen it is.

In terms of music videos, often the genre of the song is what decides on the setting. Sometimes even the lyrics of song can decide the setting, depending on how strong its narrative is.

Pop



 

This song by Bruno Mars is definitely a pop, upbeat song. The song is quite repetitive and catchy, the lyrics refer to the idea of a rich man and a player and so the video certainly fits with this idea since they are all in Vegas in lavish cars and hotels surrounded by girls. Generally we can say that Vegas is the setting for this video. I would say this does fit into conventions of pop videos as barely dressed girls are involved and there are fancy cars.

 

Rock/Metal

 

 

The conventions of this genre of music tends to be the band playing in a gloomy warehouse/somewhere derelict. There tends to be focus on the band and a lot of slow motion. Mainly, in terms of setting, everything tends to be gloomy and grimy.

 

I would say that genre can influence the setting of a video, but perhaps not as much as the lyrics of the song. Often the lyrics can lead the narrative. Setting is hugely important in creating mise en scene as creating a setting can lead to a completely different atmosphere/lighting etc. If a song was sad but the setting lead to an upbeat, light mise en scene, this may confuse the viewer. If the song is sad and the setting is a dark place, this is going to create a better understanding for the viewer. 

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Song Choice

How important is song choice?

Song choice is very important as the genre of the song and also potentially lyrics are usually what shapes the actual music video itself. If the song doesn't fit the music video then the product as w hole i.e. the song and the video has a much lessened effect. Sometimes however artists decide to go for a music video to accompany a song that has absolutely nothing to do with the lyrics and is of a completely different mood to the song, if pulled of effectively this can make for a very good music video, however it is hard to get this right. Most of the best music videos should convey the same sort of emotion as the song itself, for example a sad song should have a video that if you watch you should feel sad. For our coursework we have decided that we will actually make the music video and have that done before we actually decide the song, this will enable us to play hundreds of songs over our music video and try to find something that fits perfectly over the top. This saves us trying to think of a song we like and instead we can create a powerful video and find a song that fits instead of having a think of an idea to go with a specific song.

 

What genre of music are you thinking of using?

 

As we have changed our original plan of using the same song as in our preliminary, we plan to film our music video using our original idea and then find a song that fits over the top, we aren't thinking too much about thee genre on the song yet. However based on our ideas it will most likely be a quite down beat, atmospheric and soft, a song that would go with a very dream like video.

 

What genre of filming do you think will fit with this genre of music?

 

 As we are focusing on getting the video done first and then finding a song that will fit with the video after. This means we already have quite a good idea of what type of film making we wish to go with and once it is filmed we will find a song that fits with this. Our genre of film will either be quite a downbeat genre of video or quite a dreamy imaginative genre. Either way we want our video to be focused on good lighting and multiple camera shots and angles. We also want our video to be very fluid in all the different shots and character movements.

 

What songs are you thinking of using? Why?

 

 Because we wish to focus more on the quality of the music video instead of trying to mold a video around a specific song we won't choose our song until after our video is made. We believe this a better way of doing it as once our video is done we can just play loads of songs over the top until we find the perfect one, this means we focus more on making a quality video rather than choosing a song. Also it could lead to us finding a song that fits better with the video than if we decided the song before we did the video. I think perhaps something from the genre of trip-hop could work well.

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The key history of music video

To generalise and summarise breifly, in the current music video era that we live in today the adoption of the 'Sex Appeal' of females has monopolised the music industry, opposed to choosing the more traditional and quality methods because today  they are less profitable. Of course there are still many different,  interesting, imaginative and heart felt  videos being produced however in main stream media what we see most of the time is sex appeal. Another important change is that we can now access videos easily on youtube.

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Video Update #2

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Existing characters

For music videos with a strong narrative, characters can be a quite an important aspect. However, some music videos choose to simply use visuals to illustrate the song that is playing. Characters in a music video can help the audience connect and relate to a song; and for some bands the same characters are used in several videos to create a concept album.

 

False Alarm - The Weeknd

 

This music video is quite unique as we see the narrative through the eyes of an unknown character. This is quite engaging and new. Through this POV narrative we can see a focus on one character in particular: the girl.

 

What makes her so memorable is the fact that the POV we are coming from seems to favour her over the team's targets e.g. the money. This leads to a lot of questions; does the POV and girl have a past? Is the POV simply just kind hearted? On top of this, she becomes more memorable due to the ending where she leaves the POV to die and takes a money bag. This is unexpected, particularly as the girl comes across as innocent - though she clearly shows initiative as she shot one of the captures. It is interesting how we are made to feel sorry for her at the start of the video but this is quickly changed by the end.

 

The girl really adds to the narrative as she keeps an element of emotion in the story, instead of it being mindless violence with an arguably cliché story line.

 

 



 

Acid Rain - Lorn

 

This music video won a few awards. It is again quite a unique music video. There are about 5 characters in the music video, but the main focus seems to be on the first cheerleader we see. The narrative is somewhat mysterious and vague, but it still manages to capture and maintain the audience's attention. What makes the characters so memorable is perhaps their movements and the way they dance, coupled with the effects placed in during editing. Put together, this creates a really dynamic set of characters.

 

The audience can connect to the first character in particular as she ties the start and end together and we can gather that she has died in the car crash along with the other cheerleaders.

 

 

Lullaby - The Cure

 

The song itself tells the story of the Spider Man that haunts your sleep. The video illustrates and brings this to life. The main character is of course Robert Smith who remains in bed being haunted by a series of characters. It has a strong narrative and is led by the lyrics of the song.

 

We can understand that the character in bed is struggling to sleep and is perhaps an insomniac. The changing happenings and the Spider Man getting closer helps to maintain the audience's attention. I think all the characters used in the video make it so memorable - this including the glimpses of the Spider Man, the shots of the marching band covered in cobwebs, and the character in bed himself. Robert Smith's signature look is still included which helps make the video more iconic.

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Targets for A2

My main targets for A2 are; to improve and develop my practical skills such as filming, creating successful mise en scene, and creating album covers using skills I have learnt last year in Graphic communication. I also want to improve aspects of my research and blogging skills to communicate ideas in interesting and different media. Pretty much all our aims and targets for our A2 coursework is to improve upon our preliminary task. For example we want to improve on the narrative of our music video. We would also like to improve on our costumes by using proper costumes for characters such as people living in the woods. We also want to ensure our video is shot in a wider variety and more carefully selected locations. We also want our video to include more extras so that there isn't a lack of content or characters, this will prevent the video from becoming boring.

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Existing Narratives

What is a narrative?

'The way a story is told so that the elements are structured and ordered in such a way that it makes sense to the audience. It has also been described as how events are unified in space and time.' (Leanne Gelder).

How does narrative work in relation to music video?

Often the narrative will relate to the lyrics of the song, I think this is really important, the narrative also needs to fit the mood of the song. Its also really effective when movements and shot transitions/shot lengths align with the tempo and pace of the song, helping the audience to engage with the music video. In most cases the narrative has to be told visually (no dialogue) so the shots and actions of the characters need to be thourily considered.

 

Music videos can be characterised by 3 broad typologies; narrative, conceptual and performance. Often music videos will cut between narrative and performance: Steve Archer (2004)  'Often, music videos will cut between a narrative and a performance of the song by the band. Additionally, a carefully choreographed dance might be part of the artist’s performance or an extra aspect of the video designed to aid visualisation and the ‘repeatability’ factor. Sometimes, the artist (especially the singer) will be part of the story , acting as narrator and participant at the same time. But it is the lip synch close-up and the miming of playing instrument s that remains at the heart of music videos, as if to assure us that the band really can kick it.' 

Conventions of narrative

The most common theme in narrative music videos tends to be love stories/romances.

Goodwin (1992), describing Madonna's videos; suggests that the essential narrative component in a music video is to frame the star, as most of Madonna's videos seem to do however I would say this isn't set in stone as I have watched many successful videos that do not have this component or any narrative. The other most common genres of narrative in music video are comedy, drama, horror. I have included some examples of the different conventional genres.

Comedy

The conventions for a comedy music video, as the genre suggests, are funny, jokey and comedic. They will almost always involve the star/singer/band doing funny, strange or weird things. Comedic videos are probably most common in rap genres as it more suits the type of music and artist such as Eminem.
 

Narrative theorem in music video

 

 

 

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Decisions

What coursework brief are you going to complete?

We are doing a music video. This is because we had done a music video for our preliminary and felt we could effectively build on this. Furthermore,  we were all big fans of music and watched music videos regularly, therefore we had better knowledge of the style and conventions of a music video, where as we were more unfamiliar with short films and children TV drama.

Who are you working with?

I am working in a group with Emma Hagstrom and Jasper Williams. Rachael Hustler was also in our group however she left to go and work with another group. We felt we would work well as a group together as we get on well (which makes communication and working together much easier) and we have a varied skill set which allows us to spread the work load more evenly. This also means we can all do what we are best at and allow the others to do the areas we may struggle with. For example Emma takes Art Multimedia and is very good at making things like album covers and Jasper and I do not have as much experience with doing things like this therefore we can allow Emma to do this whilst we complete other things, such as filming, that Emma may not be as good at.

Any initial ideas?

We are going to build and improve upon our preliminary task. This is because we felt we had a solid idea and good enough audience feedback to successfully improve upon it. We also felt that as we already had the idea and knew what we had to improve upon this would be easier than thinking of a completely new idea and song. Our song we are using is still the Safety Dance by the Men Without Hats and our idea is based around a young child and the place that he goes to in his dreams when he's bored. The song will feature a teacher who the child is trying to defeat in his dreams. We have other ideas within this general outline however these ideas all depend on how many other actors we are able to get to play roles.

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Conventions in music videos for various genres

Pop

. The main conventions of pop music videos is that they are very upbeat, rather eccentric and tend to revolve around the singer themselves, usually with a sexualised objectification of the women, fitting the 'ideal' body image of women we often see within the media. Although after saying that I would say the same is often done with men in the videos - a lot seems to be just about being sexy.  Everyone is made up and naked/nearly naked. The videos tend to place on exotic, brightly coloured, staged location, usually very obviously a high budget production with expensive costume and locations. Often rather superficial.

 

This video cuts between shots of Arianna Grande singing into the camera, some dancing in the shower and shots of her with a group of girls on gym equipment and sitting on steps. The lighting is an intense blue and orange through out, linking the shots together and creating a strong sense of atmosphere which I think actually works really well. There is a strong feel of movement through out the video with the shot transitions and the dancing fitting with the beat of the song, the shots slow down and become less busy on quieter parts of the video and sort explode on the chorus, which I think works well and should be considered for our video. There is little to no narrative.

 

Indie / Rock

In the indie rock genre the music video will almost definitely be featuring the band or singer performing/ playing instruments. Often there will be narrative, sometimes the artist will be the actor for example Kodaline often features as an actor in his music videos whilst cutting back to live performance. Generally the locations and costume are more low-key and low-budget often just everyday places and clothes.

 

 

 

This video consists of extreme close-ups and close-ups of the band playing instruments and head shots of Julian singing into the mic. I think the simplicity of the video is really effective, putting the focus on the music itself more than the band unlike within a conventional pop video where the video revolves around the singer being all glamorous. The mise en scene and costume are very neutral and simple with low key lighting. Again there is no narrative what so ever for the video.

 

UK underground hip-hop

 

Music videos for uk rappers tend to be very varied but generally still follow some of the same conventions, which is why I chose to discuss it. The majority of videos will be centred around the rapper, lip syncing while in different locations. The camera work is often quite creative, with pans, tilts and short shot lengths to match the pace of the song and keep the video interesting. The locations are usually everyday places, often out on the streets, and with mates, a low-key realistic Mise en scene, often in places full of graffiti. Often the videos can be deliberately quite comical, amusing or wacky or they are very simple and atmospheric, generally not with narrative, for example the video below consisting of only a few continuous tracking shots of a guy skate boarding, fitting the chilled out vibes of the song.

 

 

I chose to add this example in as I think that the simplicity and mononity is really effective and fits really well with the song. The video consists of a few tracking shots following him skateboarding, I think this could be used to symbolise a journey. There are 3 broad typologies characterizing music videos; conceptual, performance and narrative. This video I would categorise as conceptual (using metaphors to create mood and offering multiple meanings).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Research Into Existing Music Videos - Student-Made

This video appears to follow several characters, yet still maintains clarity. These characters of course cross paths. The fight scenes seem carefully choreographed and filmed with detail paid attention to in each shot. The camera quality itself adds to how dynamic each shot is; placing focus on just one aspect of a composition can be quite intense - this matches the theme of the music video. This is clearly a narrative lead story.

 

Compared to the previous video, the camera quality is clearly very low - this may be due to the time it was made. What we found effective about this video is that the video occasionally takes priority over the song. For example, the girl opening the door and the music stopping to engage the audience deeper into the audio was extremely effective. Again, this is another narrative lead video, except this one integrates the use of dialogue, however not much. This can be effective in small amounts.

 

 

This video has a sense of a story line, but the whole video is not directed by it. The director has chosen to link the start and the end in order to make the main body of the video make sense. However, this seems relatively well done with smooth transitions between the two worlds. This may be useful to pay attention to for our own final music video. The video fits well with the song, which is arguably the most important aspect of creating a music video. Out of all 3 of the student-made videos, this one is closest to our idea.

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Research into existing music videos - Professionally made

After a search on google we found out that the safety dance was of the new wave synth pop genre, we therefore found 3 existing professional music videos of the same genre as our research.

 

New Order - Blue Monday

 

 

Blue Monday by New order has a very abstract music video. None of the video is lip synced and there is no narrative or live performance in the video. It is made up of lots of almost random videos put together, it is a very abstract video even though there is no sort of narrative at all. Some parts of the video are filmed in stop motion. The video contains no dialogue or much interaction between characters seen in the video. There are a couple of shots of the people in the video laughing however no actual dialogue. There looks as if there is 2 or 3 locations however these appear to just be different coloured rooms and an all black room. There are also no credits in the video. Overall even though there is no narrative the video works very well and fits the song well.

 

Pet Shop Boys - Love Comes Quickly

 

 

This video is very different to Blue Monday by New Order despite being of the same genre. Pretty much all of the video is lip synced and features the main singer singing the song, however it is not a live performance. It also has no narrative, it is just the singer singing into the camera with various images faded other the top and other effects. There is one main character in the video which is just the main singer of the band, he is centre hot for almost the whole video, there are various other people that appear other the top of the video of the main singer singing. There is no dialogue just the lyrics of the song. There is one location but other images appear faintly over the top of the video of this one location and these could potentially be from other locations but it is not clear. There are no credits.

 

The Human League - Don't You Want Me

 

 

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 Some of this video is lip synced however some is not. Once again there is no live performance in this video. The video interchanges between lip syncing the song and being a sort of narrative about a film set. It often mixes it up by having shots of the film shoot and then one of the main singers walking through lip syncing the song. There are more characters this time, the two main consisting of members of the band who lip sync the song between shots of the narrative. There is also a couple of locations including a house and a street and the inside of a car. Once again, however there is no credits.

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Video diary - Week 2

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Research into existing music videos - Student made

 

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A2 coursework breif

We have been given the choice between two briefs; first to make a short film lasting approximately 5 minutes, with a film poster and a film magazine review. The second choice was to make a promotion pack for an album; including a music video, a digipak, and a magazine advertisement for the digipak.

I decided to go with the music video as I think the task suits my skills better. I have joined up with Abbey Hunter, Rachael Hustler and Jasper Williams as I really like their idea from their preliminary task which we are going to use and build on, which is going to be re-filmed to create a more solid story line and too look more professional but still using some of the same footage. We will all be working together on all areas however I will be more focused on creating the digipack and the magazine advertisement while the others will focus more on filming and editing the video.

This is the preliminary task which is what the coursework video will be based on, using the same idea and song (the safety dance).

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Evaluation Questions

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the forms and conventions of real media products?

Construction and research:
this stage required a surprisingly large amount of technology to be used because we needed to go o the internet and find possible locations that we could use, finding the location was difficult because we had to not find ones that are suitable for filming but that we could get to with our cast. The process would have taken a lot longer if we hadn't had the internet because anywhere that we where considering using we could look at on google maps and check that we would actually be able to get there. we also hade to use technology in this stage when we where taking the photos for the location scouting and through using our phones we where able to upload them straight to blogger and then when we where back at school we where able arrange them on PowerPoint and plan out each shot in what order we wanted to do them and I think this made our idea flow a lot better and improved the overall result of the music video.

Planning:
The planning stage used less technology than the research stage but still used a it we planned where we where going to go and what we where going to do for locations on PowerPoint and even talking to our cast we used Facebook messenger to make sure that everybody was in the right place at the right time. We also used technology in this stage by making a checklist for what we needed to bring and what our restraints where for the filming we did this on our phones so that we would have them with us when we where filming and to make sure that we fitted in with them as much as we could.

Evaluating:
We used technology in our evaluating stage by uploading our video to YouTube and then sending it to people by email and messenger to get them to give our reviews for our audience feedback. we also used PowerPoint to answer one of the questions. since we split up some of the tasks between our group we also used email to make sure that everyone in the group had what they needed. We also used Facebook messenger and a group chat to help answer the questions and get advice from other people in the group so that the answers we gave where the best that they could be.

2.How effective is the combination of your main product(video) and your ancillary text (CD cover)?

 I made the ablum cover using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, using illustrator to vectorise my drawing for a smooth-cut professional finish.think that the album cover works very well also with eh video and the song because the faceless girl shows the emotionlessness that we have from the girl in the video in the classroom and shows the universe summing up the endless possibilities that we see when she is with the boy in the video.I think the video and the cd cover are very effective for the song the title of the song swell as a lot of the lyrics are about being on another planet and I think that we convey this well with the video because the story plays out that the girl is bored in a lesson and daydreaming about being with this boy and I think that fits well with the story. I also think that it is very effective that we used a girl rather than the convention of a boy as well as not trying to make it physically another planet but interpreting it to be anther place and I think that makes the video a lot deeper and hides meaning into the song. I think that the video itself is effective as well in summing up how the average student feels and shows how the girl our main character wants to be free and enjoy her childhood rather than being bored.

the cd cover also works well with the title of the song because it shows the girl is in a different place. The album cover works well with a particular scene in the video swell ands that is the powder paint scene there is a lot of colour in that scene and they disappear through the pain into the water and i think the girls face on the cd cover shows something similar the thought of disappearing into the colour 

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Perhaps the greatest thing we have learnt from our audience feedback is what sort of things in a music video actually appeal to people. It appeared that not everyone really liked Blink 182 but would still be engaged in the clip if it were entertaining and met their expectations of what a typical media product should be. When exhibiting the final preliminary to the public we immediately gathered some audience feedback. By showing the clip to our entire class we asked some questions after the screening. They said that the lighting effects between the cold, isolated feeling in the classroom in contrast with the warm, soft colours of the love montage was particularly effective. They also said that certain subtleties such as the blink logo, warping effects and transitions made the outcome that little more professional. It is these sort of editing effects that ultimately make the difference from raw footage to the final cut. However, our teacher Mr Cole, said some things could be improved upon such as the use of pull focus and extreme blurring. Whilst producing the clip we did experiment with a little blurring but the camera we used was not able to facilitate such blurring qualities which meant we could only use the "selective focusing and tracking" within editing programs such as premiere pro. We also realized that we could have used music syncing to ensure that the beat of the music actually coincided with the footage. This was something we were unable to do because the song completely varies in beat throughout the song making it almost impossible to match the sequence with the audio. However, it seemed that our audience did not pick up on this very minor fact and still enjoyed the final outcome. In the clip we were also required to include a shot no shorter than 4 seconds as well as one shot that lasts at least 35 seconds. We have achieved the first but the 35 second shot was extremely difficult to incorporate within the clip as it did not really fit with the timings of the song. However we did try and attempt to include a shot that lasts roughly 14 seconds near the beginning of the extract.

4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluating stage?

Construction and research:
this stage required a surprisingly large amount of technology to be used because we needed to go o the internet and find possible locations that we could use, finding the location was difficult because we had to not find ones that are suitable for filming but that we could get to with our cast. The process would have taken a lot longer if we hadn't had the internet because anywhere that we where considering using we could look at on google maps and check that we would actually be able to get there. we also had to use technology in this stage when we where taking the photos for the location scouting and through using our phones we where able to upload them straight to blogger and then when we where back at school we where able arrange them on PowerPoint and plan out each shot in what order we wanted to do them and I think this made our idea flow a lot better and improved the overall result of the music video.

Planning:
The planning stage used less technology than the research stage but still used a it we planned where we where going to go and what we where going to do for locations on PowerPoint and even talking to our cast we used Facebook messenger to make sure that everybody was in the right place at the right time. We also used technology in this stage by making a checklist for what we needed to bring and what our restraints where for the filming we did this on our phones so that we would have them with us when we where filming and to make sure that we fitted in with them as much as we could.

Evaluating:
We used technology in our evaluating stage by uploading our video to YouTube and then sending it to people by email and messenger to get them to give our reviews for our audience feedback. we also used PowerPoint to answer one of the questions. since we split up some of the tasks between our group we also used email to make sure that everyone in the group had what they needed. We also used Facebook messenger and a group chat to help answer the questions and get advice from other people in the group so that the answers we gave where the best that they could be.

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Final Cut For Preliminary Task

This is a link to the final cut of our preliminary task.

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Final Cast And Roles

The final cast that we have chosen is Zoë and Tom. We didn't audition tom on video as we where planning to use Charlie but at the last minute he decided that he didn't want to do it so we had to audition tom quickly and he was actually the best male audition that we had which turned out to be very fortunate. We have chosen these two because tom had a very good audition and so did Zoë, although we auditioned Zoë for the role with another girl that we where originally considering she was happy to do the part with a boy which was our final idea. The thing that we liked most about the audition these two gave was that they both put in art of commitment and really showed a passion in the way that they answered their lines, even in an audition zoe was playing the part of being in love with Laura the other person we where auditing with her which was perfect for the role. and tom also put a lot of commitment and passion into his performance.

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Shooting Schedule

29th june 2016: This is the first day of our filming mainly because it is a Wednesday. We have the day off for an inset day at the school and we thought this would be a brilliant opportunity to do some filing because we want to do some shots in the city and as I said earlier we won't be able to film at the weekends at it is to busy so we are going to get up early and go up the city to do some of the filming where we won't have lots of people possibly ruining the shots. We are also if we ave time going to do the shots in the forest on the same day as they are also near the city. This will be with our two actors so we need to make sure that they are free not hat day and they we have some way of getting to the locations.

4th July 2016: This is the second day that we are going to film and this is going to be at school filing the shots in the class room we decided to do this on this day because out actor for this scene is free and we will have a few hours free to film which should give out loads of time to film what we need. Another benefit of doing it at school is that we will be able to use other people at the school to be background actors for the scene.

9th July 2016: This is a Saturday and we are going to film the band shots we are using this because the band is busy a lot and this is one for the only days that they are all free and are able to make it for our filming. Another reason we are using this day is because the weather should be good and if we decide to do some shots outside then we don't want it to be raining.

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Final Location Plan

These are the final locations that we decided to use. In the end we decided to use nearly all the locations that we scouted apart from the local park as we felt there would be too many shots of them in a forest setting and not enough urban ones. We have also had an idea to get more shots from around the city even though we haven't scouted them in places such as  the shopping centre or the royal arcade which have some opportunities for some really good shots and getting the actors to do some different things, however mainly it will be then spending time with each other . we thought the locations would be good because they are slightly different than where a couple would go on an date and that again fits in with the song well as they are supposed to be a bit different.

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Casting Auditions

These are the casting auditions for our music video. From this we are going to pick who we would like to have in our video. straight away there were a few people that we know we didn't want to use and a few we would really like to use so it shouldn't be to hard to create a short list. We are also going to split them up although we auditioned them in pairs we are going to mix them up to get the best possible cast.

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Final Plot Ideas

Our final plot idea is nearly the same as the last idea we came up with. The idea is that a girl is in a classroom falling asleep which then cuts to her with a boy basically just spending tie together walking about sitting together. We re going to cut in shots of a band playing the song as well. one of the main shots in the video is of the couple jumping into a river through powder paint. We wanted to use this because it symbolises the rebellious attitude of the song. the end of the song we are going to have the girl waking up in the class room but its empty and the whole video just happened in her head.

This song fits in well with our conditions which where one shot of 30 seconds and no shot longer that 4 seconds. The song has a long introduction of 42 seconds which provides us with an brilliant opportunity to fit in the long 30 second shot and the rest of the song is quite fast paced which will let us have short shots to fit in with the 4 second condition. The main stimulus that we had was the song itself the lyrics are quite clear and easy to understand which provided us with an idea to work off that idea being somewhere else on another planet.

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Lyrics of the song

"Another Girl, Another Planet"

 

[Blink-182]

I Always flirt with death
I could kill but I don't care about it
I can face your threats
Stand up tall and scream and shout about it

I think I'm on another world with you
I'm on another planet with you

You always get under my skin
I don't find it irritating
You always play to win
I don't need rehabilitating

Another girl, another planet
Another girl, another planet

Space travel's in my blood
And there ain't nothing I can do about it
Long journeys wear me out but
Oh god, you know we won't live without it

Another girl is loving you now
Another planet forever holding you down
Another planet

The tempo of the song as with most of the songs in the pop Punk genre is quite fast, upbeat and energetic. This dramatically affects how we plan to do our video because it has to fit in with the song. Because of this the requirement that we got that "no shot should be longer than 4 seconds" is actually quite beneficial and easy to accomplish. It is worth noting here that this condition did influence our song choice greatly. By having quick shots we are able to create the energetic feel of the song in the video and this is so important because  if the video is very slow and the song fast, then it wouldn't look right to watch and wouldn't look very good at all.The lyrics of the song also have a massive impact on the video because we want to have a good narrative so we need to plan a video that fits in with the lyrics of the song. The main part of the song is Another girl another planet as with the song title and so we need to plan the video to incorporate it some how we are planning to have an influence of some how the girl being in a different place to out main character suggesting the other planet. The genre of the song is pop/rock punk, with this normally the videos for these types of songs fit in with the punk type culture, This affects how the people in videos dress act and what they are doing and so this would influence how we plan the mise en scene of the video to try and follow the trend of videos in the same sort of genre.

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Plot Ideas

original idea: The main basis of the plot will follow both a boy and girl with intermittent shots of the band playing throughout. In the initial scenes we will follow the boy in a school classroom. By using crab shots and also a tracking shot we will focus on the boy as a central focus amongst the other students. We could consider using a shallow focus here to blur out the background and highlight the boy as the central focus. The boy is seen at the desk slowly falling asleep where the scene is immediately cut to memories/dreams of the boy and girl together. We will most likely use a montage of shots to make their relationship feel more believable. Furthermore, throughout the music video we will use small (4 second) cuts of the band to give a certain context to the music and promote the song itself. Towards the end we will hear a sound bridge of a traditional school bell where we are brought back to the classroom at the beginning where the boy is seen alone, isolated within the classroom.

Current Idea (6/24/16) :
Our current idea is a little different as we have altered the plot and changed the protagonist from the boy to the girl. I think this will give more of an interest and reverse the gender stereotypes usually depicted within music videos today. We have also introduced effects such as powder paint and sparklers, thinking about using a long exposure and experiment with light throughout the clip. However, we are currently keeping with the idea of the school and the frequent shots of the band as I think this really works with the song's particular genre.
We have also thought about using fairly abandoned locations on set for the band to play in. I think this would look effective and really break up the confinement of spaces such as the school.

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Casting Ideas

Before filming any of the film we decided to cast our actors as to decide who would be best suited for clip. When interviewing them we decided to ask them a range of questions based on our film including script and questions.

The casting of our music video was very important for us to get right because we felt the song requires a certain kind of person to make it look the best, so when we where auditioning people we need to make sure they wouldn't hold back and would be willing to have fun with the filming rather than feeling nervous or worried about doing it. It was also important for us to get two people that would be happy working together as if they didn't really like each other then the video wouldn't look as good.

Since the song is by a pop punk band we want to get people who look and act like they would fit in with that genre and culture, we can sort the costumes out so that they look right but if they act very reserved for example it won't look right and they would look out of place acting in the video. Since it is important for us to have good actors in this video we would ideally like to use people who have done acting before so we are looking to se drama students from our school because they would both have experience and they would be the right get that we are going for which is 17-18 years old.

We have already started thinking about people who we could use that fit all of our criteria and we have asked them if they would audition all but 2 said that they would which is useful as it will give us a choice rather than just 2 people saying y
es and us being forced to use them.

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Location Details

Drew and ollie decided to scout some locations to do the filming in.

The first place we went to was the forest behind the local park to see if there was any places that we could either put in the band shots or have our couple be doing some sort of activity. It was very wet when we went and so we had to leave quickly and the areas that we where looking where quite wet this would be ideal for filming so hopefully it will be dry when we go to film there however if not e will have to find something else to do there or shoot somewhere else.

The second place we went to was the marshes in norwich this was a really good location as it had 3 different landscapes in it. it had open fields a dense forest with big dips in the landscape and the marshes themselves which where open fields and rivers. This has provided us with a lot that we could possibly do and so we would defiantly like to use that location.

 

The third location that we went to was the city itself and we decided that we would have some more urban shots there where a few locations there but we will decide finally on the day of filming as we need to check where there set too many people as this could possible ruin the shots, because of this we would like to go in the week so its quieter.

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