Music Video Planning: Risk Assessment

Risk	Potential outcomes	How to prevent risk
Weather conditions causing icy/ wet surfaces	Serious injury, head injury	Plan to film on days where weather conditions are suitable.
Falling down steep hills	Serious injury	Make sure filming area isn’t anywhere near steep surfaces
Tripping over equipment	Likely to be not very serious injury	Make sure equipment is away from areas in which people may be moving around.
Tripping over rocks/rabbit holes etc	Serious injury, twisted ankles etc	Make sure the area we are filming in is clear of rocks stuck out of the ground etc

Music Video Planning: Choreography/Movements & Blocking

Choreography/Movements


The lead guitarist is at the forefront of the music video and is the member of the group who is going to hold the most screen time so here are some images that represent some of the choreography he may be involved in:

The lead guitarist will strike some rock poses as seen on the left and right.


The bassist really needs to look like they are really into playing the song so that it makes the video more believable. Similarly, the drummer needs to look like they are also physically involved in the filming process and make it look like they are putting a lot of effort into their 'drumming': Facial expressions are likely to be a big part of the drummer's choreography for instance.


Blocking



 In terms of the positioning of the band, we are going for a traditional 'triangle formation', which involves the drummer at the back and the 2 standing band members at the front. We chose this because we felt it would mean the band would be more accessible as a group when shooting and it wouldn't limit our selection of shots like other formations might.

Music Video Planning: Cast

Rory Bailey :Rory Bailey: Lead guitar/vocalist

James Inglis: Bass guitar

Morgan Jarvis: Drums

Music Video Planning: Photos of Location

These are some photos of our location we are filming our music video in.

  

 

Music video animatic

We created an animatic of the first 45 seconds of our music video, including both narrative and performance parts, to give a feel of what our finished music video will look like. The animatic doesn't contain all of the shots we will use in the final video but as they are sketches of shots it wouldn't be very time efficient.

Research and Planning: Costumes and Props

Costume/Prop Item	Source	Potential Cost
Jackets used in digipak	These jackets are already owned by the actors	Nothing
Other items of clothing also used in digipak, including dark jeans.	Already owned by the actors	Nothing
Guitar x2	Most members involved in video own a guitar	Nothing
Possible use of drum kit	Two of the members own a drum kit for possible use	Nothing

Props:


Two guitars are needed but are easily accessible.









The use of the drums will depend on weather conditions and also how easily we will be able to transport them to the location.

Research and Planning: Time Management

Deadlines

• research and planning- 18/12/11
• Draft music video- 27/01/12
• Final music video- 10/02/12

Task	Start/Finish Date	Other Info
1)    Filming for draft music video	Week commencing: 2nd January 2012 Week commencing: 9th January 2012	Duration: 2/3 hours a time. If we finish filming early we will move straight on to editing. Some filming may take place over Christmas holidays.
2)    Editing draft music video	Week commencing: 16th January 2012 – 27th January 2012	Duration: 2 weeks (lesson time). May finish sooner in which case we will move straight on to filming/editing the real music video.
3)    Filming for final music video	Narrative section to be filmed in the first 2 weeks back after holidays (4th January 2012).	Duration: 2 weeks. Performance shots will be filmed with the draft video.
4)    Editing final music video	Editing of the final music video will take place in the 2 weeks prior to the final deadline.	Duration: 2 weeks

Final Advert

Here is my completed magazine advert:

Final Digipak

Here is my completed digipak:

Audience Feedback

To get some feedback from the audience this advert and digipak are aimed at, I created a focus group on Facebook. The main feedback I received was spelling and grammatical corrections, suggesting that there were no real problems with the look or layout of the digipak and advert. This meant that I didn't have to make any big changes to either one.

Print task plan

Here is the plan of how I will use my time to create my digipak and advert.

Magazine Advert: Foo Fighters

My second magazine advert analysis will be of this Foo Fighters advert, advertising their greatest hits album. 

Magazine Advert: Stereo Phonics

Here is my analysis of Stereophonic's magazine advert:

Analysis of Digipacks

Analysis of Digipacks on Prezi

Redundancy and Entropy

Redundancy is when something has a highly predictable or conventional message. It is useful to communicate a message although the information in this message will be very limited.
Entropy is unpredictability or a text which contains unpredictable elements. This will have the ability to convey a bigger message than a redundant text.

The audience and genre for our music video is fairly mainstream. This means that our music video, digipack and  magazine advert ought to be fairly redundant where the idea is fairly simple, but is communicated to the audience fairly easily therefore these must be easily understandable. However, our audience isnt completely mainstream so we will be able to make our video have some entropic ideas.

Pitch Feed Back

 With the completion of our pitch came some comments on ways we could improve or expand on our current ideas and some which praised our ideas. Here is some of the feedback we received:

•  The general idea should be expanded more as it is slightly underdeveloped. Consider a more interesting narrative.
• If filming on top of the Malvern Hills, we would need to consider weather conditions, getting equipment up the hills and also getting to the hills in the first place.
• Think about who will be driving when filming the vehicle shots.
• Revise target audience: Consider the JICNAR scale and its categories.
• The idea is fairly ambitious but would look very effective if done well.
• The idea sounds achievable with college equipment.
• Revise logistical arrangements (for example a drum kit may not be too difficult to transport in terms of our chosen location).
• Possibly add more action into the narrative.

Pitch Materials

Here is the Prezi we created for our ideas pitch:

Developing Ideas: Pitch on Prezi

Creativity: Stop Motion

The second way in which we tried to become more creative was we made a stop motion animation. We did this buy taking photographs with a stills camera  where the subject would move very little between each photo, we then put these together to make an animation. 

With this, we could create visuals where the person in the shot was seemingly levitating or rotating while sat down on the floor among others.

These creative ideas would later help us with the development of the music video. For example, they opened up possibilities of ways to create the video or parts of the video. It also gave us a general sense of what kinds of elements we would want to include in our video.

 I also think that our greater concentration on a narrative of sorts is because of the creative tasks that we had to undergo prior to our pitch.

Creativity: Benign Berliner Mood Board

In order to get some ideas for our music video we were asked to do something creative. Below is a mood board that we created of some of the images that came to mind when we listened to our chosen song:

Benign Berliner Moodboard on Prezi

Creativity- Ken Robinson

Creativity can be defined as an original idea with value. Ken Robinson said that 'if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original'. He also says that as we get older we lose the ability to be creative because we become less prepared to be wrong. In order to become more creative we need to be able to take risks in order to come up with original ideas.

Music Video Research: Killers 'When You Were Young'

In contrast to the two other music video I have analysed, this music video by The Killers, contains a much  wider variety of shots, angles and camera movements. This is because the other two music video were disjunctive and contained no real narrative. Whereas in this video, there is an almost film like narrative that needs this wide variety of cinematography to portray and show the story they are trying to tell.
 It seemed that whenever, the band were shown playing, the shots tended to be medium close ups. Along with the low lighting, this made it seem that they didn't want the whole attention to be centred around them but instead around the narrative.

Whenever the narrative was being shown, the cinematography then became more interesting therefore complimenting the story.

Obviously there is a lot of continuity in this music video because they wanted it to be like a film. There weren't any special transitions because I think they wanted the story to be the most important thing in this video so having any fancy editing techniques would mask the effect they are trying to give. I thinks this connotes that this band want to tell a story with their music and with this music video, they can make the general story of the lyrics and music into a visual narrative through the process of synaesthesia.



The setting of the story is by the looks of it somewhere in south America. The lighting reflects the mood of the story, when the couple are happy, the lighting is bright but when the woman finds out her husband has cheated on her the lighting goes a lot darker.

The setting when the band are playing is fairly plain and you cant see much of it, again connoting that they want the main focus to be on the narrative and not just the bands performance.

There doesn't appear to be any difference between choruses and verses but I think that's because there isn't a lot of change in the actual song between choruses and verses.

The narrative of the video is shown from start to finish, there is even footage playing before the music starts which i think shows how they think the telling of the narrative is very important.

Here the music hasn't even started

I think the image they are trying to present with this video, is that they make music with meaning and a narrative that is worth being told, and not just music that is meaningless and thin.

Overall, this music video is quite literal. This is because the story the lyrics are telling are what's being shown in the video for example, when the song says 'when you were young' it flashes back to the time when the couple are getting married.

However you could say that this music video is amplifying because it doesnt say in the lyrics anything about a couple in south America but they are using this image to 'amplify' the story that is being told by the lryics.

Music Video Research: Foals 'Cassius'

  Camera Shots, Angle, Movement and Composition


For the majority of the music video, most of the shots are fairly straight on mid shots. This is very similar to the Metronomy video as most of the shots in that were also mid shots. However there are also some close up shots and some mid to long shots. I think the use of mid shots connotes how they want it to be simplistic so its focused on them and not on things going on around them. This simplicity can also be seen in the angles of these shots as nearly all of them are straight on and also in the composition, as most of the time they are positioned very close to the centre of the screen. This can commonly be see in music videos of the same genre. 

However, I think the amount of shots and in particular jump cuts, give it a very fast pace, and therefore make it feel slightly odd and quirky.
The camera movements are also very limited as there are only a few quick pans during some shots. These quick pans reflect the speed of the music during those shots. 

Editing


The most obvious kinds of editing is the use of jump cuts. Jump cuts are used a lot all the way through the music video. As well as this, slow motion is also used quite a lot. I think the combination of these two editing techniques helps create a very quirky and edgy feel that is very common in music videos of the same genre such as the Metronomy music video. The transition of shots doesn't seem to be anything special, but instead just lets the other kinds of editing create the quirky feel.

Mise-en-Scene
The costumes of the band never change from the plain and simple clothes they are wearing at the start of the video and the set never changes from the grey background either. The combination of these two things give a simplistic feel possibly because they think making the music is the most important thing.

However, if you look at the props used, a completely different feel is given, seeing as the props used are hearts on strings and various tablets and pills. This connotes something is slightly wrong amongst the normality that the other things are connoting.

Andrew Goodwin:

The main way the visuals respond to the music is that the shot changes or there is a jump cut along with the beat of the music.
The different parts of the music like the verses and choruses, have no real difference between them, which shows this music video maybe goes against what Andrew Goodwin said about music videos. However I do think that the visuals emerge from the music. I think because the music is slightly quirky and strange, then an odd music video is required.
This music video doesn't follow any narrative at all really as most things that happen are completely random, which means that this is a disjunctive music video as none of the things going on in the video relate to the lyrics. However, I think it would be difficult to make this music anything another than disjunctive due to the amount of variation in lyrics and lack of sense or narrative in the lyrics.
The kind of image this band is presenting definitely fits in with other music videos they have done as they all the similar strange and quirky feel to them which I think is also typical to music videos of other bands of the same genre.

The main notable type of editing is the jump cut which is used frequently throughout the whole video which connote a  slightly strange and odd feel which I think is definitely a motif of this genre of music.
The most significant shot type in this video is the medium close-up, which is pretty much the only shot used. I think this connotes quite the opposite of the jump cuts as this connotes a feel of simplicity.This is also complimented by the mise en scene because the set is just a grey background that never changes, and their clothes are fairly plain and also don't change. However, these may just be simple and plain so there actions can be seen more clearly .

Andrew Goodwin: Metronomy

Andrew Goodwin, a  music video director, stated a music video is "...a clip that responds to the pleasures of music, and in which music is made visual, in new ways or in ways that accentuate existing visual associations".




How do the visuals respond to the music?

• The verses, choruses and bridges in the Metronomy video are punctuated by various transitional effects as we follow the bouncing ball around the house, such as quick pans.
• The main way the sounds of the song have been made visual is with the bouncing ball that follows the lyrics of the song along. Although it is a very simple idea, it translates the beat of the song into the visuals which is how the video responds to the song. The ball also bounces around the set which further enforces this point.

To what extent does it follow a narrative?

• Generally the video does not follow a narrative, however there are several places (in the verses) where we are shown part of the 'story' through literal still images like in the shot below. Again, this shows the video is visualising the song and therefore staying true to Andrew Goodwin's thesis.

What kind of image is the star presenting?

• The lyrics of this song are generally to do with real life issues (relationships) and I think this is reflected in the video itself. For example, the ordinary clothing that each of the band is wearing represent a 'real life' image - complimenting the song.

Is the video literal, disjunctive or amplifying?

•  The video is mostly disjunctive. As for the most part, there is no real narrative and the bouncing ball and lyrics combination has no link to the lyrics of the song or hide any underlying meaning. Despite this, however, as we have already seen above there are some quite literal parts of the video which would make this a illustrative video as well as a disjunctive one.

Sven E Carlsson

 "One of the most common methods of analysis is to break up the music video into black and white boxes. Almost everything is then perceived as opposites - trash or art, commerce or creativity, male or female, naturalism or anti-realism"

Music video research: Metronomy

The first music video that I decided to analyse was 'A Thing For Me' by Metronomy

 The type of camera shot used throughout the video tends to stay the same as medium close-up shots are seen in the majority of the video such as in the screen shots below. These shots are common in videos from smaller bands like Metronomy as they often involve the band playing which means there are less close-ups and more wider shots. I think this shows a certain level of simplicity which seems to to be common for bands of this genre.

 The camera angles in the music video don't vary much. For most of the shots, the angle is very level like in the above screen shots. However, there are some quick upside down shots which give the video quite a quirky and edgy feel, which is definitely something seen a lot in this genre of music.

 The video contains quite a lot of camera movement. Mainly, there is a lot of camera shake from the use of a  hand-held camera and also in some shots there are quick pans which are used to switch from scene to scene. I think these camera movements add to the authenticity of the video because it adds a sense of realism to it which again is a common theme in indie music videos.
 Although, there are also many shots which have a steady pan or zoom which go against the hand held shots but I think they do add to the idea of simplicity.

The main kind of editing in this music video is the ball that follows the words across the screen. This also follows the several transitions of shots; for example the white ceiling at 1:41 morphs into a drum in the next shot. This is known as a graphic match as both the ceiling and the drum skin are of the same colour so the transition here is both smooth and relevant. This type of editing is quite clever shows how indie music videos go for these clever editing transitions to achieve the quirky feel that many music videos of this genre go for.

 One part of the mise-en-scene in this video is the costumes. I think because the costumes overall are fairly plain and ordinary, there is again a feeling of realism and authenticity. However, I think the setting in which it is filmed, gives a quirky feeling. Both of the things are common in this genre of music.

Evaluation: Busted Music Video

For this task we had to practise the processes that we would have to use in order to create a full music video. For this we first made a video of us lip syncing to a small section of a song. We also then made had to recreate the first section to a music video as closely as we could to the original.

Research and Planning
The most useful planning task was the storyboard. This is because it allowed us to see how many shots there were and also what kind of shots they were.
Although, if we had done a more in-depth storyboard, it would have been even easier to see what each shots was like and what exactly happened in each shot.

Here is an example of our storyboard :











The kinds of planning I expect to during the A2 year are; Locations, props, actors, etc


Production: Digital Technologies
My knowledge of using the film camera has developed as I feel that now I pay much more attention to how each shot is framed. The thing I learned is how important it is to get the lighting, composition, angle and framing of the shot right to make it look the same as the original.
The main technological skill I would like to develop during the A2 year is definitely the use of a film camera as I feel at the moment my camera skills are fairly standard and I would want them to develop to a level above standard.

Production
During the production of  this video I learnt that making even the first section of a music video is hard, mainly due to the fact that music videos tends to be very fast paced and so they include lots of different shots.
In general, the shoot was successful as we were able to shoot all of our shots in one day. However, I think some of the shots weren't as good as they could have been which could be overcome if we retook each shot more times.

Post Production: Digital Technology
in my opinion the editing stage went very well and I found it fairly easy. However, the files we used were slightly different and so it meant that every time we used a clip we had to render it. Without this, it would have made the process a little bit quicker. The main tool I used was the cutting tool, so I could get each clip down to the right size so that it would fit with the song but also the original video.