Locations (Planning)

As a group, we thought about using camden passage, because we like the idea of using cobble streets, which gives it a more mysterious feel to our video.

Portobello Road - we like the idea of the coloured buildings. Links in with the happy vibe and the blue sky.

Audience task (PLANNING)

Emily Smith our ideal target audience

I have used wordle to create all the things which would be asscoiated with emily and her lifestyle.

{planning} Our music video narrative and a look at Vladimir Propps theory.

I just wanted to write a bit about how we're improving the narrative structure of our story. If you look at our original storyboard you'll see that it's a very linear "plot", and it's real weakness is that it has no disruption to bring out the best of endings. Most stories can be described in their most simplistic form as having a "Setup"-"Disruption"-"Equilibrium" formulae or something similar, I very briefly mentioned this while looking at Andrew Goodwin earlier. Perhaps now would be a good time to delve more into story theory with a look at a 20th century russian fellow called Vladimir Propp..


Propp analyside a large number of russian folk tales to come up with a typology of narrative structure. His functions or "narratemes" have been applied across cultures and to modern pieces such as Star Wars of the X-Files. He also devised seven distinct architectural character types!
I won't type/copy up all 31 of his narratemes, you can read those here, but here's a little summary:
The First seven narratemes look at the who, where, when and why as the initial story setup is introduced. That is,

1. ABSENTATION
2. INTERDICTION
3. VIOLATION of INTERDICTION
4. RECONNAISSANCE
5. DELIVERY
6. TRICKERY
7. COMPLICITY

This is were the real adventure begins, the next 4 narratemes will push the hero into going on his or her quest.

1. VILLAINY or LACK
2. MEDIATION
3. BEGINNING COUNTER-ACTION
4. DEPARTURE

The hero's actual quest, these next steps cover many escapades and the story might find it's self resolved by the end of them.

1. FIRST FUNCTION OF THE DONOR
2. HERO'S REACTION
3. RECEIPT OF A MAGICAL AGENT
4. GUIDANCE
5. STRUGGLE
6. BRANDING
7. VICTORY
8. LIQUIDATION

Finally Propp presents us with a possible continuation of the story, since not all stories continue after the resolution/liquidation the following are more of a suggestion or guide.

1. RETURN
2. PURSUIT
3. RESCUE
4. UNRECOGNIZED ARRIVAL
5. UNFOUNDED CLAIMS
6. DIFFICULT TASK
7. SOLUTION
8. RECOGNITION
9. EXPOSURE
10. TRANSFIGURATION
11. PUNISHMENT
12. WEDDING

Of course that's all well and good, not entirely relatable to a music video but helpful to know none the less, but does any of that really apply to our current video plan? nope!
That's why we've decided to alter our story a little. What we feel it needs is a bit more interaction, something that ought to be introduce into any music video. As an example of what we should be trying to achieve, this video by the verve is brilliant:

The chap in the video maintains his rhythm, attitude and voice throughout the song, had he just been walking undisturbed this would have gotten very dull to watch. However introducing the other bit characters interacting, or at least trying to interact with him makes this video really interesting and even entrancing to watch.


We want to combine some of all these elements into our own story, so we're going to introduce a third character (Other than Coco or Mr Blue). This character will become the turning point in the story, while she is presented as a friend she will disrupt coco's day out and stall her from meeting Mr Blue sky. Particularly for a youthful audience familiar with the difficulties of balancing friendship and romance, and who also have a love of drama, this will really be the missing piece that will result in a thoroughly good music video.

Animatic and Storyboard

The pages of our storyboard can be viewed here:

{1} {2} {3} {4} {5} {6} {7} {8}

Shots of Potential Locations (PLANNING)

Portobello road (west London)- Great atmosphere i think for our video, the colour of the surrounding houses will be great to go with the lyrics. Great for location shots with her singing down road maybe also.

Wellington street (west London)- Great location with city feel without the busy look/ interruptions. Also great cafe location, as we want to do a outside cafe shot with our leading lady.

Camden passage (Angel)- Great for our semi market scene and has the prefect cobble street look. That is very important for our video.

Short list of potential songs (PLANNING)

Selecting the right song for our music video was a very hard task. As we wanted a certain type of feel to the song. We wanted it to be current but also differnt at the same time. We also wanted it relate to our selcted audience. In the end we had many song ideas, some were upbeat and uptempo and some were the total oppsite.

Short list of potential songs :-

• Joss stone- Son of a preacher man (cover)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBH8o8XXnVM

• Dusty springfield- Son of a preacher man

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZWEEm6xZvU

• Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg_7TL5PAzA

• Lily Allen - Not Fair

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUYaosyR4bE&ob=av2e

• KT Tunstall - Suddenly I See

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AEoUa0Hlso&a=GxdCwVVULXcHbs4v5flUWMJ_Z5XH9-QR&list=ML&playnext=1

• ADELE - Chasing Pavements

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBmwdlBFs1s

• Duffy - Well, Well, Well

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6UwmJRkjBs&feature=pyv&ad=5835204107&kw=duffy

Research on previous student video

Emre, Fouzia, Kashmir & Solone from 283goswell on Vimeo.

In preparation for our music video, we were asked to analysis the previous A2's music videos, whether good or bad. I loved watching the videos from last year, most of them gave me tips about editing and different camera shots.

Emre, Fouzia, Kashmir & Solone

Donaeo - Party Hard

Audience
There target audience must have been for young adults, who are going to college 16-20, for both male and female. Young, stylish and, retro.

Genre
The genre of this song is funky house/garage. The video features the kind of audience it is targeted to, from this the target audience will be inspired. They may be inspired by the way they dress or the dance movements. The artist costume links in iwth the genre, as they went for a casual look, not too fancy. The jeans, addidas top, the hoody and, trainers link in with the genre. The lighting is vital in this video, it is used a lot. It creates a more party mood, (the flickering lights) like how the lights will change in a club.

Narrative
I will describe the narrative structure, as linear, as it is going in order. We see the artist getting into his car, then picking up his friend, and then going up the stairs to the club. However, it cuts to shots of the ravers dancing and having a good time. There is a disruption in the video, as the artist ends up getting rejected by the girls, he was with at the club. The central artist's position in the narrative, is the participant and narrator. The lyrics link to the narrative through illustration, because he is clearly illustrating what he is doing.

Media Language
The pace of the editing is quite fast, from one movement to the other. The dancemoves are repeated. Its uses a match when we see the artist getting into the car. Uses cross cuts, when he is driving, we go to the ravers dancing. It uses text, to give it that happy feeling, with the bright colours. The overall effect the editing has is a up beat mood. I think the editing is conventional to the genre.

{Planning} Our Music Video Pitch

Here you can see our pitch which we've uploaded in full, However the html code seems to be a little tempremental so if you can't see the Pitch Above (it should be there) then please take a look at it by following this link!


We also presented some of our initial didgipak ideas,

(Holly's)

{Planning} Audience Analysis

Meet Emily, She's our target audience member!

Emily has just turned 18. She's a student and she's still living with her wealthy banker dad and trendy european mother, which means all the money she's making working at a trendy vintage clothing boutique is being spent to fuel her passion for fashion and music. You could classify her as B class, after her parents combined incomes, which means she is a great audience group when it comes to selling an artists and associated products.

In her Her Handbag you would find the new model touch screen feature phone designed for social networking so that she can keep in touch with all her friends. You'll find her ipod nano, which she bought to listen to her favourite artists in style. Perhaps the latest copy of vogue for reading on tube journeys while she's commuting from her parents place in Notting Hill to brick lane for a little shopping trip with friends. You'll find a makeup kit as she thinks looking good is important but places a high emphasis on finding her own personal style by emulating her idols. She likes to think that she's a reformer of sorts, much like our artist Coco Blu, but we would class her as an aspirer no doubt about it. 

Her family are good to her, they take her on interesting holidays ever year, but her dad can be a little controlling so shes developed a little rebelious streak. Some nights she likes to sneak off too a nightclub to meet up with friends and she always takes a taxi home. Her favourite memory was a weekend trip to paris with her friends where she fell in love with fashion and music culture.

Planning: Our Own Ideas for a Video

After a lot of research and plain internet nosyiness to find the right song, we ended on Lily Allen - Mr Blue Sky. This was after weeks of discussion and research based on the female british artist we needed.
We did a lot of work on 50's female artists because we wanted to maintain such a classy pin up style. The chosen song is a cover of Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) from '78 and has since then been covered by around 5 artists.
Over the years Lily herself has taken on this oldish theme, and we thought appropriate that she had such a british accent on her songs. This will make it much easier on our own singing and filming.

Other options included Joss Stone, Duffy, Dusty Springfield, Natasha Bedingfield, etc. I very much liked these picks, but would have thought something like Natasha Bedingfield way to known and pop. Which is obviously our theme but i would've known we could do so much better on song choice.

I think Lily Allen is just on the borderline of eccentric and Pop, and she does have her own quirk. However, i do realize how we will have to change this, we are now focusing on us, as if we were our own band and had to produce a cover that was slightly different to anything Lily has.
Luckily for us the track of this song on youtube contains no video, so we are fresh minded and our imaginations is much more open on what we can do.

Research: Previous Student Video analysis

In preparation and aid for our own music video planning, we decided to view last years student music videos. We watched a series of them, including good and bad ones, this was so we could clarify our ideas on things that we shall avoid doing in our own video. I enjoyed looking at past videos, it gave me an insight into what was expected, especially looking at ones who acheived good grades because i was able to understand why and what they had done to achieve this.

This particular video i enjoyed out of the selection i viewed. The song choice was by Jamie T - Sheila, it was to begin with a very effective song because of its positive pronounciation so it would have been easier to mime along to. The genre was clear through the mise en scene, including costume because of the main performers dress sense being the London street indie rap kid. The target audience seems to range from teenagers to young adults, i think this because of the way the narrator in the video is portrayed, his rudy british style gives way to certain attitude and brings more meaning to the story unfolding in the video. The narrative is structered around a girl and her problems she has with being part of youth and the problems she faces during this period of time. It's a clear representation and editing carefully with excellent shots, all in all producing an effect video.

Research: Lip Synch, Own Turn

This was our very first lip sync video making, lo and behold! The video can be seen on another blog below. It was surprisingly fun, choosing an artist learning lyrics in 3 minutes flat. It was interesting however, to see where we could go wrong and how well we did go wrong.

When editing especially we were able to see our common mistakes. Some of them included:

• Not singing tracks all the way through, or beginning and ending at different points, so that when put together the syncing and track didn't go together
• Not pronouncing the lyrics well enough when miming so its more obvious that the song wasnt really being sung
• Not having enough variation of shots so that the final product wasn't a very exciting video to end with
• Not using a tripod, so a steady hand wasnt acheived making the image tremble or blurry because it would become out of focus

All these problems will obviously try to be avoided in our final work, but producing a rough edit first will allow us to see if we have made these mistakes and have enough time to film scenes again

{Planning} Potential songs, and the winner is...

When it came to choosing an artist we knew that we wanted a female singer for obvious reasons but we were quite open to genre. These are just a few artists we considered and read on to find out more on our final decision.

Natasha Bedingfield


The Natasha Bedingfield song "these words" seemed like a great choice, mostly because it allowed so much creative freedom. We all had ideas and different interpretations, all of which would have leant themselves well to a student project. Alas the song in question already has a pretty successful video and we felt that it would reflect negatively upon on our own work whenever someone was to make comparisons between are amateur production and a professional one.

The Tingtings


There were several reasons I thought The Ting Tings would be a good choice of artist. Take for example the song above, "That's not my name", the artist enunciates very clearly and I thought it would be a very suitable song to lip sync. I also liked the pace of their music which I think would allow for some interesting to the beat editing. This song has a video but it's very minimalist and we thought we could make a video and it would be impossible to compare the two as they would be very different. Another song "Hands" doesn't yet have a video and would have given us a lot of freedom. However as a group we were sure that if we were to make a video for either of these songs it would be completely illustrative, which would compliment the song but we wanted to explore other tunes that we might be able to do something more interesting with.

Josh stone
  

Josh Stone is a lovely female singer and her voice would have suited our Sylvda very well, the predominant reason we decided against using her songs was that the actual style of singing would be hard to get the same every time, the stress on the syllables and the drawn out notes are all things I imagine would make lip syncing more frustrating and hard to achieve.

So we eventually decided on...

Lily Allen - Mr Blue Sky


This song is actually a cover of the 1977 hit by ELO or the Electric Light Orchestra. We thought this song had the most potential; it worked well illustratively and suggested amplification, of course their is no video giving us completely blank starting point, It would be easy to sing due to Lily Allens clean singing style and musically it was very interesting. That is, that you'll noticed that the timing changes a few times throughout the song giving us room to edit in many different way. The mix of synthesised sounds and vocal singing give us a lot to work with. Lilly Allen herself has a distinct accent you might find in London which seems really appropriate considering our probable filming locations.

{Planning} Our own lip sync exercise!

This is the outcome of our groups lip sync exercise, please see our own individual evaluations to find out how we feel it went!