Timeline.

We decided to create our timeline this week as then it makes it clear to us what the structure is. 

In our lessons this week we will be doing our timeline, so we know exactly where the structure of our music video so that we can come up with ideas and images of what we want to be in our music video at a certain time or frame on the timeline. The lyrics play quite a big role in  this part as we can look at them and they can give us an idea, such as the line "3, 6, 9" we want lights to flash up. We want to see how the mise-en-scene goes with he lyrics in the song. The lyrics in the song are quite random and are repeated a lot, so its negative as we don't know what to put in there but also positive as we can create anything we want. We have decided that our music video will have loads of visual aspects to it so the viewer will be interested. All the different sets, costumes, lights and props will make the music video look really crazy and cool.

Group Communiation.

As we all go to boarding school, some of us arent in the same house and we also live so far away from eachother on the weekends. The phone signall at school isnt great either so we thought we would make a facebook group to communicate with eachother so we can post all our ideas/questions/pictures/inspiraiton on there which is set so only the four of us can see it. This is a really easy and quick way of communicating with eachother. 

Talk from Ollie Allgrove

Ollie Allgrove come into school to have a chat with us about who he works for and what he does. He works for Passion Pictures, which is an independant production company. They mainly produce feature films, TV commercials, nature documentaries and music videos. 
I found his talk interesting as I learned things I didnt know about the industry, such as sometimes there will need to be more than one director if the film has animation as they will need a completely new director for the animation side of things as they all specialise in different areas. I also thought it was interesting when he was talking about music videos, He said music videos only used to be played on TV, however they started to die out a little bit until youtube came along, which gave artists their own voice and then the videos become available for people to download and watch not only on their TV, but they could also download it and watch it on their mobile phones and tablets. Finally, I found it interesting when he talked about the band they produced a music video for with barely any budget, but the director liked the idea of a man jumping off a building, however this was going to be way over their budget as they would have to hire a stunt man etc, so instead, they tied a camera to some helium balloons and created some fake legs and it gave the same effect- this was interesting to listen to especially as we are creating music videos with not really any budget, it makes you think alot more creatively. 

Our New Song Choice.

3, 6, 9, the goose drank wine
The monkey chewed tobacco on the streetcar line
The line broke, the monkey got choked, And they all went to heaven in a little rowboat
Clap, clap
Clap, snap
Clap, pat
Clap, snap
Clap, clap
Everybody dance to the music
3, 6, 9, the goose drank wine
The monkey chewed tobacco on the streetcar line, The line broke, the monkey got choked
And they all went to heaven in a little rowboat
Clap, clap
Clap, snap
Clap, pat
Clap, snap
Clap, clap
Everybody dance to the music
Mama told me
She can't control me
3, 6, 9, the goose drank wine
The monkey chewed tobacco on the streetcar line
The line broke, the monkey got choked
And they all went to heaven in a little rowboat
Clap, clap
Clap, snap
Clap, clap
Clap, snap
Clap, clap
Clap your hands and dance to the music

Our New Improved Idea.

After speaking to our creative director, Luke, again, we realised that our idea was slightly boring and wouldn't work as well as we imagined it would. We therefore went back to square one and focused on the most important thing of the video, which was the performance element-which we plan to film in the studio. We watched some music videos and looked for some more inspiration. The images below are images that stood out to me and I would like to use in our video. We had three sections to the performance element.
1. UV or neon lighting/ Negative effect.
2. A black and white theme using projections
3. Different words in different colour lights (this also gave us the idea of a roller skater. 
4. Black and White pop art like with an element of colour 

Star Image we want to create for our artist. (question 3 and 4)

Our Music Video Treatment.

Our idea had developed onto the idea of a group of teenagers trying to break into a manor house to try and enter a party, when they get inside, there is a tea party set out that looks very grande, but as they walk through the house, we see loads of people having a party and there are lots of bizarre things, such as clowns, ballerinas, inflatables, balloons and feathers, then all the tea party gets smashed up and at the end, we see the teenagers we see at the start, wake up but the house is empty. This would be the narrative aspect and the performance bit was going to be the artist singing in the studio. However, we felt that it wouldn't be possible to pull off a party as we can only use the year below to be in the video, so we thought it would be hard to motivate them and even harder to make them look older and as if they were at a party. 

Therefore, we changed the idea slightly. 

The new concept is the idea of the aftermath of a party. The singer (female artist) will be walking through the house and into different rooms. Each room will be a metaphor for a different emotion you feel . For example, we will have a room representing calmness/tranquility and we will have shots of a ballet dancer dressed in a tutu doing ballet in that room to show this. The next room will be happiness, which we want to fill with balloons and have the artist walk through them to show this emotion and finally, the last emotion we thought of was Tranquility, which we were going to use clowns for and put them in the room. They would be laying on the floor and when the artist walks in, they would come to life and dance or use choreographed movements around her. 

The performance element of the video was going to be different shots of the artist, lip syncing in the studio, using clowns and ballet dancers dancing behind her, to bring the two concepts together.



We are planning on shooting the narrative part of the video in Leith Hill as it looks like a big abandoned house, which is perfect for us. Inside, there are also several rooms which we could use to represent the emotions/metaphors. And then we plan to film the performance element of the video in the studio as this makes it easier to use projections and lights etc. We quite liked the idea of lazer lights, However, if this is too difficult, we will just use moving lights in the studio and we will also project different sized shapes over the artist whilst she is lip syncing.  

In the performance element, the artist will be wearing smart casual clothes, so maybe a skirt and perhaps a blouse. Whereas in the narrative element, I feel the clothes will be a lot more casual as it is the night after the party, where she is meant to be hungover and laying around. So I feel like she will be wearing a white t shirt, tracksuit bottoms and slippers with her hair up in a messy bun. This will also contrast with the ballet dancer in a leotard and tutu with a very neat bun in her hair and the clowns which will have very detailed bizarre make up and strange clothing. Or to make the video more appealing to girls, we could dress her all in pink outfit that looks quite smart, and then pink pyjamas for the day after. 

A Video Of Our Music Video Pitch

Audience Profiling.

Audience Profile for The Weeknd:

-Aimed at younger audience ages 15-30
-Working to middle class
-Perhaps people that are on drugs as a lot of his songs are about them/the feeling yo have when you're on them.
-Alternative/Edgy style 
-People that can relate to his music
-Younger kids who have possibly grown up not as privileged as others.
-People that have gone through a difficult time in their life. 
-Black American/British ethnicity. 

Audience Profile For Jess Glynne:

-Aimed At a wider audience, aged 12-45, all though I think majority of the audience would still be in education. 

-Working, Middle and upper class.

-People that like to have fun 

-Possibly people that are too strict on themselves.

-All different ethnicities.  

Initial meeting with Luke.

In todays lesson, Luke, our creative director of film, came in for a meeting to give us some information of filming our music videos. The first thing he told us was that it is and will not be a good idea to use a well known song that already has a music video, by a well known artist. This is because, people will watch our video, then watch the real video and the videos will constantly getting compared to each other, making our video look weaker- as the actual video will probably have a huge budget and a team of  about 50+ people working on it. 

The next thing Luke told us was to try and think outside of the 'school' box and think above that. For example, not using cliche ideas such as boy meets girl, they break up, they get back together. Also looking at different materials, such as art work for inspiration and not just other music videos. 

Another point he made was that it is good to include a performance element, along with the lip sync element. This is because it makes it a lot easier when editing as you can cut that to the track and then use it when and if you need/want it. 

Music Markets.

After creating our thought shower, we decided on the genre of RnB, but we wanted to make it more Dark RnB, than just RnB in general. I decided to do some research on the market and looking at the BPI website, I found that in 2013, RnB was the fifth genre on the list for Album Sales, with a percent of 5.7 This is good in a way, as it shows that their is a smaller audience, which is a niche, so therefore it would be easier to target, especially as the audience are quite stereotypical. We can also see that Pop and Rock were the first 2, meaning it would be a lot harder to target as there is a much much bigger audience, making bigger sales (25.3%). From reading the article below, it could possibly suggest there is room to increase in the market as it quotes '2013 saw two MOR/Easy titles break through the year end top 10' it also says 'Dance scored its best score in 8 years' this tells us that the market is always changing and there is room to increase RnB sales. However, later on in the article, it states that 'RnB decreased to record its smallest share since 1995, with only 5 titles in the top 100' This reinforces the niche market/audience and encompasses that the audience like a very specific sound. 

Research into similar artists.

Looking through our ideas, the main theme that occurs is the dark vibe kind of feel, my group liked songs by The Weeknd and Frank Ocean, so I decided to do some more research into their songs, videos and websites. 

The Weeknd. 

These are the 4 covers of the weeknds recent albums, 3 out of the 4 have a common theme, which is the black and white- we wrote this down on our thought shower as we felt that it would help build atmosphere.
                                                                               









We want our music video to include a male artist, with similar style to the weeknd. In September 2012, he signed with Republic Records in a joint venture with his own imprint label XO
His website also continues his 'Black and White'/dark coloured  theme as seen in 3 out of 4 of his albums. It also includes loads of dark pictures of performing live.

I also looked at the weeknd's social media pages, I found out his Facebook has 3.7 million likes and on Twitter, he has 2.7 million followers. All though his fans and views are in the millions, I would call this a niche market as it is not actually that many compared to the artists that are in the top 10 at the moment. 

One of his latest singles, 'The Hills', managed to get 196 million views (watch below. This & Wicked Games include lots of elements in the music videos, which we wrote down on our though shower. Such as, being set on the streets, the black and white theme and the shadows/Silouhettes.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Sound wise, we were also looking for songs with this type of vibe as we really like the 'dark RnB' sound

Another artist that is similar to our type of artist, is party next door. They aren't as well known as the weeknd, only having 77 thousands likes on Facebook and 500k thousand followers on twitter. However, he still has a few songs featuring artists such as Drake, who is also a similar type of artist to the artist we want in our music video- this may be because he is signed to Drakes label, OVO Sound. 

This video is slightly stemming away from our video ideas, as it doesn't have that 'dark' feel to it. However, the artist is more like the artist we are going for. His website is also a lot more colourful and only consists of his sound cloud and links to buy his most recent music. (Check it out on the link below.) However, his album cover relates more to our dark theme, and it also uses some visual effects, which is what we wanted to include in our video, and there is also an effect across his jumper which looks like street lights at night which fits in with our type of vibe.

http://partyomo.com/

Group and Music video idea. (add pics of thought shower)

Today, we chose and finalised our final groups for creating the music video. I am in a group with Lara, Georgie and George. We decided to go in a group together, because after discussing our initial ideas which we thought of over the summer, We felt our ideas were quite similar and we were on the same page about what genre we wanted to create the video for and the things we wanted to include in the video, which is a good start.

Also in todays lesson, we created 'post-it thought showers' to jot down our ideas and inspiration. Below is some pictures of what we created. We liked the idea of filming a dark kind of RnB video- artists we come up with for inspiration included The Weeknd and Frank Ocean. We looked at things such as visual effects, locations, editing techniques, inspiration from artists and other videos and finally a list of possible songs we could create a music video for.

my media group

Music Research Video.

I decided to interview my friend, Santino, who is a singer/songwriter, to get his views and opinions of the music industry. 

Music Video Idea 3- LANA DEL REY- SUMMERTIME SADNESS

Finally, I decided to choose this song as it is completely different genres to the other 2 songs I have chosen, and also the artist is a female as appose to my other 2 choices, both of which are male artists/bands, so I thought it would be good to have something different. 

In the video, I imagine it to be about a girl, having a lot of flashbacks, cutting between the flashbacks and the present. In the present she would be singing whilst walking in a field in the countryside, wearing a long floaty dress with a huge train, and/or in an abandoned house as I think there would be a lot of cool things you could include in a video in an abandoned house. For example clowns, ballerinas, a pillow fight and an artist. I also imagine the flashbacks to have some sort of effect on them to make clear it is a flashback. 

I imagine the video to start with a pan of the landscape and then cut to closer up shots of different elements of the landscape such as different flowers, the sky and trees etc. When the lyrics start, I then imagine it to cut to a tracking mid shot of her singing whilst walking through the field. When the beat kicks in, I picture the first flashback of her as a child playing in a park or at the beach,this clip will have a darker effect. Then it cuts back to her in the field still walking and singing. Then we hear the bridge, I imagine this bit to be in the abandoned house, with weird things in there, such as scary clowns, girls having a pillow fight, a painter/artist and people that just look out of place, whilst she is standing singing in the dark in plain clothing. The chorus then comes in again, and it will then cut back to another flash back of her when she was a bit older than the previous flashback, perhaps her in school writing, and her with her friends, still using the same effect as the previous flashback.
When the lyrics go ' I got that summer time summer time sadness' it cuts back to her laying down in the field singing with the dress spread out all around her. On the next verse, it cuts to her back in the house, however, I would like this to be more static- like still pictures edited together quickly to give it a distorted effect and I also think it would be cool to have colourful lights flashing at this moment. The beat then kicks in again and she is still in the house, but this time the feathers from the girls pillow fight are falling all around her, and the painter is throwing lots of paint at her whilst she is standing still singing. I also think it would look good if the images kept freezing and then playing again, but flicking back and forward, to again, give it the distorted look. Then finally, for the last chorus, it cuts back to her in the field singing,using mid shots and close ups but quick image flashbacks keep appearing on the screen and then at the end we see her walking in the field, a high angle from behind that keeps zooming out so eventually she looks really far away and we just see her white dress with a long train in the middle of an empty field. 






Album Cover.

Back Cover.













For the album cover, I liked the ideas of flowers, like we will see in the field in the video, however, I added some effects and highlighted some flowers to make it stand out and then I added some pixelated squares to stand for the flashbacks. The title and artist name, I kept simple so it would stand out against the white. I then reversed the image for the back cover and put the tracks within the pixelated square.

 Artist name is huge at the top of page to stand out to the viewer, Image of new album (front and back cover) to show what album looks like and where fans can download, Links to social media sites to build bigger fanbase, and menu at the top so fans can find out more info on the artist, buy tour tickets and also buy merchandise. 

Music Video Idea 2. THE HILLS- THE WEEKND.

After making a mind map of the genres that I wanted to make videos for, I picked 2 of my favourite artists from the RnB genre and made a mind map of my favourite songs of theirs. I then quickly thought of some different ideas for each song and finally I picked the idea that I liked most and thought would look best- that is how I ended up with 'The Hills by The Weeknd'.

Most of the Weeknds music sounds very different to typical RnB, it has a bit of an alternative twist on it. I thought the video should be in Black and White as it fits with the song and I thought it would be quite cool to include things such as strobe lights and quick editing to give that 'trippy' effect, which is reflected in the track

Once I knew a couple of things I wanted to include in the video, I made another Mind Map of things I wanted to include in the video such as costumes and props, the artist/band image, Narratives and how everything links together from the artist, to the video, to the song, to the website and album cover. 

After looking at what I wanted to include in the video, I then began to make a story board of my idea so I could show it visually,I also thought about camera angles and editing when creating this. (see below)For the chorus of the song, I thought it would be better to type my idea as it would be hard to draw. I imagine it to be lots of close up shots of the girls body, reinforcing that he is objectifying her, and then close up shots of him walking into her house, more close ups of bottles of wine/vodka/whiskey and then cuts to a cigarette being lit which quickly cuts to him blowing out the smoke. Next we see a close up of him putting his hand on her waist and then it would cut to more shots of them touching each other. I would like them to be quick cuts as then it shows action and i also think it would go better with the beat of the song. The next shot we see is of him walking down the drive/road at night which is an extreme long shot with long duration. Next it cuts back to her sitting in a dark room at a table. she pours a glass of wine and blowing out a candle. Finally, we see him driving away and then fades to black (or repeat chorus)


Next I created the home page & digipak. Following the theme of Black and White I decided to create the cover of the album simple and keep the theme of black and white, and I also gave the album the name of the single. For the back cover I decided to make it very plain, this makes the names of the tracks stand out. 



Album Cover.

Back cover

  



                  









Black and White theme continued, Name in big bold writing to make it stand out, link to where to download the latest album and a picture of the album cover. Link to social media so fans can connect.

(https://tinosantino.wordpress.com/)

Music Video 1. 'DANGEROUS LOVE-FUSE ODG'

In the holidays I went to notting hill carnival and a lot of the music there was afrobeats/soca/bashment. I also loved the costumes so I thought it would be a good idea to use this to influence one of my music video ideas. I began to look for songs that would be cool to use as the main track when I found lots of Fuse ODG songs, I heard dangerous love and I thought it would be a complete different vibe to the weeknd song as they are completely different. So I began thinking of ideas. 

As I did with the weeknd song, I made another mind map and included things I would like to include in the video. I loved all the different costumes at carnival and I think visually, they would look cool, so they I looked online for some inspiration. Along with the costumes, I also wanted to include bright colours and show people having fun as the song is really uplifting and makes you feel happy. Below are some images of the costumes I liked. 

Costume Inspo:

Mind Map:

VideoIdea:
Starts with a black screen while it goes 'Fuse ODG and S Beezy what we tell them. Blazing." Then the lights come on we see 3 girls standing still in carnival costumes, the camera zooms in on the first girl and films from head to toe, so we see all the costume, it is then repeated for the second girl, then the third girl. When the beat kicks in, the camera then zooms out and we see lots of other girls in colourful/carnival clothing walk on set, so the whole room/audience is full. The verse then kicks in and we see an artist/band walk on stage so it is like the video is being filmed at a concert. Throughout the video we will see a veriety of different shots of the girls dancing in the crowd and having a good time and of the main singer and the band. I think it would be good to also 

Album:

(front cover)

(back cover)














Homepage:

I kept the theme of bright colours to represent the fun side of the music. As the header I also used the artists name so the viewer knows exactly what they are looking at listening to when they first click on the site. I didn't include any photos of the artists face as this will intrigue the viewer into finding out more about the artist so will make them explore the site more. I also included a photo of the latest single 'dangerous love' and put a link to where the viewers can download it & finally, I included a social media bar so viewers and fans can easily find and connect with the artist on social networking sites. I would also like to film the band/artist in the studio playing different instruments against different coloured backgrounds as I think all those elements reflect the 'fun vibe'


http://claudiarosehugo7.wix.com/ashmillions