Roles of the group.

Our group consists of three people- Olivia, Becky and Abbie. We sat down and had a discussion together about which roles we needed to take on. From this discussion we wanted to gain organisation to which will help us through the process of performing and creating the music video. We all need to be given roles within the group and keep referring back to eachother throughout the process, we came to the conclusion of what these roles were going to be.
I will be the perform the narrative throughout the music video so therefore Becky and Abbie will take charge of the filming. We are all very new to the camera facilities that are available to us, and even though I took the role of the performer I also want to learn how to use this as this will further my skills for the future. We also chose a candidate outside of our group to shoot the performance shots, so here I will be able to take charge of the camera and have the experience of not only featuring in the video but also taking a variety of shots of Matias (our performer).
After deciding this we then knew we would have to edit the video, this is one of the skills I originally wanted to improve on and luckily one of our group members was very confident on using the 'Adobe Photoshop Premiere'. We felt this was a great opportunity to enable Becky to teach both myself and Abbie how to work this programme.
Finally we have to produce a digipak, this was going to consist of using the programme 'Photoshop', I so have experience in this, so we decided as a group we were all going to work on different sections of the digipak seperately relating back to each other continually to make sure they all fit together.

Performance Story Board.

The second storyboard is the performance storyboard, our performer in this section of the video is only placed in one area throughout the video, so this storyboard is used to show the different shots and angles that we, as a group will use when it comes to filming our project

Narrative Storyboard.

My first story board shown underneath explains the narrative, it shows all the different various locations that we are going to be using in our video. It gives an idea of the plot and shows what we aim to achieve.

Location Research.

As we now know the theme, genre and aims for our music video we are able to understand in more detail what specific locations we may want to use. Here are a variety of thumbnails which have been analysed to give an idea of where our ideas are going and where the music video will be filmed.

Location research

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Initial Ideas for Mise en Scene.

When working as a group on discussing how we are going to further our music video from initial plans we have already made, I have thought about the main Mise-en-Scene we will need. Here is a list of a few ideas:

• Bench
• Sleeping bag
• Costumes- specific the two characters included in the video
- Girl: Large earrings, ripped fish net tights, Hoody, Little skirt, hair in a messy bun.
- Boy: Jeans, leather jacket/hoody, casual top, converse shoes
• Guitar
• Car
• Blanket
• Money
• Magazine (Big Issue)
• Makeup

We may add to this list when coming to produce the video as more ideas will be final. This is a draft copy to extend on what we have already worked on.

Ideas for the female Costume.

The female costume we intend to choose is very simple, as we were shooting our actress and the narrative was based around her being homeless, we wanted the conventions of the costume to show this and make the character clear to the audience. Re-searching into homeless people was challenging for us as a group, so we had to use our own imagination and create the outfit ourselves. We felt like we wanted to make the girl look grubby and cheap, so using the simple outfit portrayed the correct idea and set the scene for the music video.

We chose this dark vest top which is an item of clothing we will kept throughout the whole of the video, we chose black as it gives connotations of darkness,this colour is known to be 'bad' and gives a negative representation. We want to show the girl was in a very low stage in her life so if we use a bright colour top this wouldn't relate to the video.
This vest top is also going to be used throughout the prostituion scene but we will 'glam' this up by removing the hooded jacket she wears throughout - by removing the jacket she shows more skin as the top is slightly revealing. We also intend to place prominant make-up on the actress to show the video is leading into a different scene.

This is the hoodie we want to use throughout, we thought by having a very dull colour along with the black vest top would show the emotions she is feeling. We are going to make the hoodie look more 'tramp like' by rubbing dirt and mud into the jacket so the outfit is very realistic for the role of a homeless person.

I believe the ripped tights completes the outfit and by ripping random holes in them can really create a clear image of the character to the audience and a sense of reality. We also used these in the prostitute scene, which proves even though she's tried to glam up she doesn't have the money to buy a new outfit.

Ideas for the male costume.

The costume plays an important part in the music video as it can signify the genre of the song, we wanted to show a variety of different ways to portray the 'indie' theme and by looking at Ed Sheeran's styling we came to the conclusion that they use every day clothing. So this is what we want to base the style around.

Here is a typical outfit for an indie artist. Wearing a checkered shirt, and a plain black top underneath, we want to keep this type of look as we thought it would suit the person who will be doing our performance part in the video. We hope to place our artist in clothes that are more stylish, with more to the outfit than just 'shirt and jeans'. Also, in this picture, he looks kind of messy, which makes the look a lot more creative, and we want to keep the convention of this and portray to the audience that he is not too 'clean cut' but a bit has more of an edgy style. Below you can see the coat we will plan to place our artist in, this is currently one of thetop of the fashion trends and i believe by using this coat we will successfully completed the challenge when we aimed to make the costume Indie but also fashionable.

We want both narrative and performance shots within our music video. As a group we analysed the lyrics and wanted to relate this to our production piece we intend to produce. The original music video is very depressing and emotional which is one of the qualities we wanted to portray, by looking in depth at the lyrics we were able to create this in our music video. 

The orange represents the actress' appearance, this is easy to witness throughout the whole video; especially when we show the shot of the 'tramp' putting makeup on in the mirror.


The green represents her struggle for money etc when she is holiday coins and when she is getting paid for prostitution.

Finally, the red highlights the theme of drugs throughout the video. 




White lips, pale face
Breathing in snowflakes
Burnt lungs, sour taste
Light's gone, day's end
Struggling to pay rent
Long nights, strange men

And they say
She's in the Class A Team
Stuck in her daydream
Been this way since 18
But lately her face seems
Slowly sinking, wasting
Crumbling like pastries

And they scream
The worst things in life come free to us
Cos we're just under the upperhand
And go mad for a couple of grams
And she don't want to go outside tonight
And in a pipe she flies to the Motherland
Or sells love to another man
It's too cold outside
For angels to fly
Angels to fly

Ripped gloves, raincoat
Tried to swim and stay afloat
Dry house, wet clothes
Loose change, bank notes
Weary-eyed, dry throat
Call girl, no phone

And they say
She's in the Class A Team
Stuck in her daydream
Been this way since 18
But lately her face seems
Slowly sinking, wasting
Crumbling like pastries

And they scream
The worst things in life come free to us
Cos we're just under the upperhand
And go mad for a couple of grams
But she don't want to go outside tonight
And in a pipe she flies to the Motherland
Or sells love to another man
It's too cold outside
For angels to fly

An angel will die
Covered in white
Closed eye
And hoping for a better life
This time, we'll fade out tonight
Straight down the line

And they say
She's in the Class A Team
Stuck in her daydream
Been this way since 18
But lately her face seems
Slowly sinking, wasting
Crumbling like pastries
They scream
The worst things in life come free to us
And we're all under the upperhand
Go mad for a couple of grams
And we don't want to go outside tonight
And in a pipe we fly to the Motherland
Or sell love to another man
It's too cold outside
For angels to fly
Angels to fly
To fly, fly
Angels to fly, to fly, to fly
Angels to die

Ed Sheeran Analysis.

Once we had chosen the song, we thought it was important to investigate deeply into the original music video. This was to gain ideas about Mise en scene, shot types and costume. Ed Sheeran Analysis

Choosing our song.

Once we had the artist we now picked some of his well known hits to choose as our single:

-Drunk

-A team

-Lego House

-Sunburn

After looking at the videos and lyrics individually we felt A team was the video that fitted our brief very well. Previously discussed, we were worried about our location, budget and props that were available to us this is exactly why we chose this song. Not only will we able to re-create the song but the lyrics were also very detailed so we are able to interpret these very well throughout the video. The lyrics discuss very controversial topics of everyday society, by using this song we felt we could create a relationship with the audience and also create awareness of different topics that are forever growing.

Final Genre Decision.

After finishing my music video analysis on Rihanna and Jessie J and looking into the conventions used within a pop video we decided as a group that this would not be a realistic genre to choose due to the locations, props, actors/actresses' and budget that was available to us. After coming to this conclusion we felt like we should pursue the Indie theme.

We all came to a decision and we decided on a Indie Acoustic genre. After picking this genre we went onto bringing ideas together of different artists. From discussing this, two artists became a big part of our decision for choosing our song - Ed Sheeran and Ben Howard.

As Ed Sheeran is currently climbing in the charts we believed this was a better artist to choose, he was well known to audiences and also fitted our ideal genre perfectly. 

.

Mind Mapping Initial Ideas.

Now we have picked the genre and song we are going to produce, it was important to work as a group and collect all of our groups information together. We created two mind maps based around Locations and Narrative. We did this because we wanted to gather as many ideas as possible which will enable us to come up with the best outcome; collecting eachother others ideas will give a wider range of field.
After creating these, we had more of a clear understanding of possible locations we all felt would help make the video successful, these consist of:

-Orchard
-School grounds
-Lane
-Subway
-Walkways

The narrative mind map was especially helpful as after creating this we almost had a certain idea what type of theme we wanted to base the video around and what type of story line the video was going to follow. Drugs was a main topic we chose and to make the audience aware of how dangerous this can be; almost an 'eye opener' of reality.
Much like the original video, we wanted the character to show she was of a low status and by achieving this we want to portray she is a homeless tramp though out. I feel like these mind maps really have pushed the pre production forwards.

Audience Demographie Information.

Audiences.

Questionnaire.

After coming to a conclusion of what genre we were going to create, I created a questionnaire which I was going to set around a group discussion based on the Acoustic/Indie theme we have chosen to base our music video around, and I collected a focus group together which consisted of people I knew liked this genre of music. I believe this is necessary as I needed feedback from people that were interested in and going to listen to the music video our group is going to produce.
The questions that I asked are all listed below complete with the answers I received from the focus group of my choice. I knew exactly who I wanted to interview purely down to the research I collected from the popular site – YouTube. You-Tube enabled me to find out a variety of information about audiences of this genre which reflected on the people I spoke to and also the questions I asked. I questioned a mixed gender group aging from 14-24 as these were the people watching the videos on You-Tube. My focus group consisted of 18 people.

1) How old are you?
<16 {4} 17-20 {10} 20> {2}

2) Gender
Male {6}

Female {12}

3) What “feel” of the music video most relates to the Acoustic Indie theme?
Up-Tempo {0}
Slow {0}
Deep/Serious {18}
Slight Comedy {0}

4) What interests you most when watching a music video?
Song Lyrics {11}
Music {4}
Costumes {2}
Mise en Scene {0}
Where the video is set {1}

5) What does a music video of this genre need to focus on when making it stand out to their focus group?
(May choose more than one)
Props {5}
Drama {8}
Different camera shots/movement {10}
Narrative {6}
Editing {7}
Theme reflects on the song {11}
Variety of different actors {1}

6) Do you think it’s important to follow a narrative?
Yes {16}
No {2}

7) Do any of the artists appeal to you?
(May choose more than one)
Ed Sheeran {14}
Florence and the machine {5}
James Morrison {15}
Ben Howard {4}
Jason Mraz {7}

8) Do you think advertising artists through Web 2.0 is an effective way of making them bigger within the industry?
Yes {16}
No {2}


9) Which of the following sites are best to promote an artist?
(May choose more than one)
Facebook {18}
Twitter {11}
Blog sites {10}
Bebo {0}
MySpace {7}

10) Do you think the narrative should reflect the lyrics on screen?
Yes {17}
No {1}



After asking these questions and discussing different aspects of music videos, this questionnaire has been extremely helpful in furthering the ideas for my music video. The most popular opinion seems to be that people like the music video to have a narrative which reflects the lyrics of the song. A very deep/serious theme is what most people expected and wanted in an Acoustic Indie music video.
Web 2.0 is now a very large part of the media industry so I felt I wanted to ask my focus group about this and if they understood what this meant, most of the group did so after explaining to the people that were unsure of this, they thought it was a brilliant idea of advertising up and coming artist and also believe that social networking sites were a very good way of advertising new music releases from artist that already have become large in the music industry. Now I have heard this I want to go on to making a Facebook site to advertise our music video.

Music Video Analysis.

Here is another detailed analysis, this time focusing on a different artist. I believe Rihanna and Jessie J are of a similar genre but both acts convey different things within their music videos, i found this very interesting and learnt a new skill; even though the genre stays the same, the conventions may change slightly.

Music Video Analysis.

Analysing Music Video.

In my previous post i was looking at the genre we wanted to create and we were still unsure of our decision; either Indie or Pop.
To enable me to be able to choose the genre and to be able to focus on one type of music video I want to achieve at the end of this project, I thought that looking into detail at how the videos are produced and what type of conventions music videos follow I would investigate and analyse particular ones.
As i want my music video to appeal to a wide range of people, but aiming for the more younger generation I started with a clip from Jessie J. Although this may not be the genre i end up choosing, searching into several different aspects of this video will help me choose my outcome.

Music Video Analyse.

Genre.

The music industry is widely growing all around the world and the genre of music is also a huge part and a lot of the time, reflect on individuals and their personalities. Popular genres that are forever growing consist of:

-R&B
-Pop
-Hip-hop
-Acoustic
-Indie
-Country
-Punk
-Classic

After collecting the main genre types we still were unsure about which one appealed to use the most. We all wanted to be happy with the decision because we felt if we were interested in the genre we will work hard to achieve a successful final outcome. Two that particularly stood out to us were pop and indie so we chose these to investigate them into more detail.
Firstly we wanted to simply look at front covers of different artists and see which conventions of them we liked:
Indie covers

Pop covers

Consideration of initial ideas.

As we begin to prepare for our new project, i thought it would be a good idea to have a look at works that have already been produced by previous years within the academy. By doing this I feel it will give me a realistic idea on the type of videos we are going to produce, by looking at both their blog and final videos we will be given a clearer understanding on the project itself. The work produced by people previously have been very successful and by looking at their pre-production pieces, I feel this will benefit me. This consists of:

- Looking at audiences and target audiences; I feel this will be an important part of my research, the whole product has to appeal to a particular audience so getting the genre and theme right is exstremely important. It would be a good idea to look at a range of conventions that appeal to all types of audiences so we are able to produce our music video appealing to a wide variety.

- Genre; build up a clear understanding of genre's from music videos and short films. Therefore which ever one i choose I will have a clear understanding of the conventions and aspects they use.

- Shot types; how a good standard shot has the ability to tell a story. By capturing a shot perfectly will really represent the mood of the whole video/film. Shot types have to be successful to produce a high standard final product.

- Research into professional trailers, short films and music videos and compare them to current A level pieces and compare how similar they are and what sort of features they have kept the same.

-

Skills.

My experience with equipment in Year 12 will now enable me to further these skills this year and hopefully produce an outcome i am pleased with.

I produced a music magazine and the skills i needed to achieve this were:


-Photoshop

-Camera Shots


-Effects on the camera


-Computer Skills


-Organisation


I believe each one of these including organisation will help me with the music video our group have chosen to produce. Each skill I had learnt last year will now reflect on the work I am capable of doing this year.


During the course of my project last year, i learnt the skills to work both independently and within a group successfully. I feel this will help me this year as you have to have good people skills with whoever you get placed in a group with, also as well as working as a team I will be able to take on a role individually but also adapt the voices and opinions of my team members to combine our ideas into one place which will hopefully relate on the final project being of a high standard. I chose to work with people outside my friendship group which was a good idea as no complications would get in the way of my work and my full attention would be on my project.

I have also learnt to work efficiently to the time schedules that are set so I am given the opportunity to 'tweek' any final changes my work need to make to gain the highest quality possible.

I will be able to use the knowledge i obtained last year and adapt these qualities to help me on my project this year, even though i made a magazine in the previous year some of these features will stay the same. Things that will be similar as last year will be the target audience, how we represent the video, what ideas and issues are discussed and also conventions; there will be different conventions we will associate with different genre of music.

I have listed many things I have learnt from last year but at the end of the project i hope i develop on my creativity skills as this is what i felt i lacked on last year. To help me do this i will spend a lot of time planning and researching into music videos and ancillary texts that people have previously created; i feel this is more realistic when beginning my research as I can get a clear image of what people of my level have created in previous years.

Finally i wish to develop my skills on 'Photo shop', even though i did gain skills last year i believe with further lessons i will be able to gain more experience and create more of a clear understanding of this programme. Also 'Adobe Premiere Pro' is a programme i unfortunately didn't get to use last year, so i will stay after lesson for extra curriculum activities to further my skills and make sure i am a confident user of this before i begin creating my music video,