Shot list but as a paragraph

Guys in casual clothes at bus stop long shot, over the shoulder shot of iphone clicking play on the song, mid shot of guy looking up to sky and then camera pans up to the sky, fades to dream of him in the woods or fen mid shot then long shot, then pov looking down at the floor sees media folder, mid shot of him , close up of him looking over his shoulder, long shot of a guy with a mask on peeping out of a tree, pov turing back around, guy stood infront of him with mask on, close up of guy and then back to mask guy, hes shaking his head, pov looks down and masked guy is holding media folder, cut to black, running across a field away, hes out run them for now, goes home, long shot of him coming home, close up of key in the door, shot from behind door of him coming in, top of stair shot looking down on him as he walks up, as he gets half way up the stairs shot from the bottom of the stairs and we see him walk up, shot of him walking in to bed room, jumps with shocked face, close up of shocked face, fast pan to show media work on floor and screens, back to mid shot of him backing up and running out of the room, goes to bath room, long shot from hallway of him entering bath room, splashes face with water brids eye shot, head comes up and “media” is on the mirror pov, over the shoulder shot of same thing with shock on his face and then close up of shock on his face. Runs out of the house, fast shots stairs down and stairs up, long shot of house slams the door and hops on a bike to escape, cycles along path close up of facial expression of happiness then long shot of masked guy riding a bike following him. Stops, back and fourth between close ups of masked character and guy, both get off bikes in a long shot, over the shoulder shot of masked guy walking up to the man, holding a folder, pov looking at masked guy pans down to see folder in in hands saying get your media done, pans back up, close up of guys face scared and confused, pov of half swing of folder to his head, long shot of him being hit in the head falls to floor, blacks out, close up of shocked waking up at bus stop from dream, shot from side close up feet and folder in shot hands come down and pick it up, over the shot of him bringing it up and opening the folder, picture of masked guy holding a piece of  paper with fail on it, close up confused, close up of folder being put back in his bag, side shot of feet getting on to the bus. Over the shoulder shot of masked guy watching the bus as it leaves.

question 3 technology

Created with Padlet

Question 2 technology

Created with Padlet

Question 1 technology

Question 4 technology

Created with Padlet

Muisc promo

Shots for prelim

Prelim Poster

This is our prelim poster.

Question 3

We used a few different methods of collecting feedback and the target audience’s opinions. These methods are Poll Everywhere, vox pops, asking people opinions and conducting a focus group.  We used these methods throughout our entire project. We got feedback after our preliminary; this really helped us because it showed us what we really need to improve on skills wise, like the camera work and the framing of shots and the editing. So after research and planning to our productions this showed us what the audience will and won’t like, they also have us some good constructive criticism. Also got feedback after the production, this helped us to understand what we could have done better to make it more appealing and suitable. We needed feedback constantly because we need to know what looked right and what the audience wants. Audience feedback is so important because it can tell you many things, like weather somethings looks good, or if something works well keep it and use more of it, or if something doesn’t work so well we could change it or make it better, getting audience feedback is all about getting peoples opinion to aid you to develop your work to make it suit your target audience want work a lot better. One method we used was using audience polls, we used a website called PollEverywhere. This website enables you to setup quick and easy polls. We setup a question on it, this question was to find out what people thought of our music video intro, also it was good that you could properly answer with text not just multiple choice because we can get more detailed feedback quickly, this is good because it will show us quickly what needs to be changed and developed to create a better piece of work, whereas if you just use multiple choice your feedback will be limited. It didn’t take long; people could either write whatever they thought of it. This method was very good for quickly collecting feedback as it didn’t take long to set up and people text in their answers so they can do it from their own phone.  Using their phones really help because they may want to give feedback anonymously, another good thing about the mobile market you want feedback on what platforms to listen to music  on and watch videos on, youd get results like Spotify, Sound cloud and YouTube. We asked them what they thought of our intro to our music video. This method was very useful, we used it a few times and it was good because the feedback instantly appeared and it was quick.

Another method we used was Vox Pops. A vox pop is where you collect what people think of a certain topic or thing. None of the answers are scripted and they should be non-biased.  Vox Pops are very useful and very clear at showing people’s opinions. A problem with it those is that when you ask people they might feel like they are being put in the spotlight, they become nervous and just sometimes say the first thing that comes into their head, also some people may stutter making it hard to understand or they don’t go into enough detail.  We asked a few questions, like for example, what is your favourite music genre? Where do you want music videos the most? And what conventions do you like to see in a music promo? All of the people we interviewed were all aged around our target audience so that we would be able to get the answers that best suit our research. It was very beneficial as we got a lot of different views and opinions. From what the vox pop showed me, it was clear that people wanted more narrative than performance, but still make sure that it was contained. They also like disjuncture so we decided to incorporate that too. It showed us that people really like something going on in the shots, for example we got answers like “ an interesting story” or “dancers and dancing” and “ flashing lights” we liked the idea of an interesting story but we didn’t think that that dancing and flashing lights would work in our music video so we decided to leave them out.

While generally carrying out our planning and production we sought for audience feedback, if they like what the saw and that if they could give any useful feedback. Whatever they said we’d just write it down and act upon their feedback. For example when I had finished producing the digipak, I wanted some feedback quickly, and I didn’t have time to set up anything so I just asked my peers what they thought out it, they said the liked it but it needed a few changes. They said I should change the back of the chase to match the rest; they also wanted to see lyrics on the case so I added that down the sides. Taking feedback in quick answer form is very easy and helpful because it gets straight to the point. We used this when editing our production, creating our ancillaries and planning. This is good because people can also be non-biased and this really helped us. It is the fastest method of them all but you can forget and lose your feedback.

Another research method was that was very useful was the focus group. A focus group is where you get a group of people to sit down and you ask them questions that you want to know the answers to. We got a group of about five people to sit down and we made them watch our music promo and afterwards we asked them a variety of questions related to our music video production. Firstly we asked yes and no questions like, do you like the idea behind it? Does it suit the song? Was there a correct balance between performance and narrative? Secondly we then got them to write a detailed response on a piece of paper of what they thought of it, as they went into so much detail this meant we had a lot of feedback and it could really show us if really need to change anything to make it more suited to the target audience or making sure the genres conventions are correct. Then we got them all to talk amongst one another, we’d ask one opened ended question and then just get the focus group to talk about it between themselves and wed write down what they said. This is a good way to get very detailed answers as the people don’t feel pressed and on the spot just like in a vox pop. Just like the other methods, collecting this data meant that we had loads of information about what we could change and what people liked, it really help. We got a lot of feedback, it was mostly positive with a few negatives here and there but other all people like it because it was different and unique.

When we needed feedback on our ancillaries we made a quick focus group, it want like a proper one. We got three different people to make a few comments on them and what they thought of them. The digipaks feedback was great and so was the magazine adverts feedback, there wasn’t many points of improvement just like two, one was could of made the text slightly smaller and the other point was that I should of made the social networking icons bigger. People liked seeing the main subject of the digipak cover and the magazine advert was the masked man form the music promotion as they then could recognise it ad easily go out and buy the song or download it off of the itunes store. They said they also liked the mask because it represented fear in a physical form and how the guy can’t escape it, so because we thought of this we decided to put it is everywhere like the listener can’t escape it either People said they really liked the colours of both the digipak and the magazine advert as they show that it is a potentially a dream and that the prop of the animal is mask is white this could connote that the guy is lost and doesn’t know how to escape him and his suit is black which could connote death or fear and that’s why they guy is trying to escape it. The digipak has a really positive affect on the target audience and they really liked it. The audience also enjoyed look of the magazine poster as they said it really grabbed your attention and that it was really laid out just like a typical magazine advert or an artist, they said it followed the typical conventions and it worked very well.

Question 4

Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

We had to find an artist to create a music promo for, but it had to be an unsigned artist. Originally we used a website called unsigned.com this seemed like the best way of finding an artist. It turns out that the site wouldn’t always work it would freeze frequently meaning that it would be hard to work with. We were looking an indie style song. We decide to look on YouTube; this was hard as a lot of music is already copyrighted on YouTube. We finally found a song called Benchwarmers by the artist Finn riggings, we decided to use this song and we emailed the artist straight away.

Throughout the entire production and planning stages we used YouTube a lot to get ideas and inspiration. It was also good for showing us the typical conventions of our genre. It really should us different camera shot we could use and different effects and transitions. From looking at YouTube videos we learnt quite a few new skills and found out how to create an effective shot that panned, we learnt how to keep it smooth and not shaky. We used a tripod to keep the shot steady, we tried it three different ways, one way with the tripod on the floor, this got an ultra-steady shot but I believe it was too steady, so we tried it completely without the trip pod and this make the shot so unsmooth, so we watched another YouTube video and it showed us how to use the tripod a boom, this made the shot incredibly smooth and it just looked a lot better.

We also learnt how to use a green screen and the correct lighting. This was something we were all new to, the lighting really makes the shots clear on the singers face, it’s a lot easier to see their expressions. Learning how to use a green screen was very beneficial as we could change the background or the colour of the background to anything we wanted. When using the light we did get a slight bit of shadow, but this didn’t effective the quality of the green screen that much.

This year we learnt how to frame the shots correctly to fit our artist’s typical genre. The shots looked a lot better this year, whereas in the past the seemed very simple and boring. We used a variety of shots and different ways of filming the shots, these ideas were all influenced from YouTube and the internet.

Blogger was another very useful technology. This technology, even though so very simple its just so very helpful. It is help as it helps you keep track of your work and with the headings you have created you can really keep your work organised, I have used this all the way through to keep my work on track. During every stage I have referred back to as a reference to keep me focused and on track. Being able to post my work online maybe be very beneficial to the rest of my group so we all know what we are doing to work as a team.

During the production process we decided to use Adobe Premiere Pro. We originally started on iMovie but instantly thought it wasn’t good enough for what we wanted to achieve. We had a look at Final Cut and also decided we didn’t like it, as we believed the quality of Premiere Pro and its interface is much better to work with. We wanted to learn a new skill, so we all decided to learn how to use Premiere pro, we were mainly self-taught just be experimenting but YouTube and Adobe’s tutorials page also helped. Premiere has so much more capabilities than IMovie, one big reason why we decided to change was that the green feature on iMovie is very basic whereas the green screen feature of Premiere went into a lot of detail and enabled us to fine tune the effect. Premiere Pro you change the time scale, this meant we could precisely and accurately get all of the lip syncing in time with the send without having to randomly guess it like iMovie. Also on Premiere we left how to move shots around the screen and flip images. With Premiere you can place your soundtrack, sound effects, clips and footage on all different layers, this jut made life so simple, it really showed you were everything was and it also meant you can hide layers if need be to focus of a certain layer, this also made it easier to make the lip syncing shots flow and work a lot better; as you can precisely find the point in the shot where the singer first opens their mouth to sing and you can match it to the soundtrack. Another thing Premiere affectively do was to add text over the top of the video, this was very quick and simple, but it gave a clean professional look to the video. We also had a shot that was quite long and in the clip the camera jolts and shakes, so to keep the shot looking steady and professional we had to cut the clip down to a size which suited the video and got rid of the camera work mistake.

 

Another good technology that was very beneficial to promoting and artist was Adobe Photoshop, there are a wide range of things you can do with this technology and it was proven really useful in creating our magazine advert and digipak. I had learnt to use Photoshop in my GCSE graphics lessons and I was able to apply my pervious knowledge to my work. One things I really love about Photoshop is the layers option, just makes creating any work simple and quite efficient, just like on Premiere it enabled to see things a lot easier and hide things that I didn’t need to focus of.

A really simple but effective tool we used in the production of our digipak was that of the filter gallery, its very simple and it just and a very interesting effect to the image. We choose to use the “Cutout” style, this make it look very eye catching and also helped create a band image. Also we didn’t like the original background behind the main subject (masked man) so we changed the background, we did this by carefully using the lasso tool around the man and then deleted the background and then put a new one in and placed it on the later below. With the new background it catches the audience attention as it has a slight more eye catching colour, a little warmer.

 

Question 2

We wanted all of our products to link together; we did this by keeping the theme, the style of camera work and the typography all the same. We got ideas from many different media texts, we looked at TwoDoorCinemaClub’s magazine advert and got inspiration from them, the concept behind our music video is that the guy can’t escape his media work and how he is going to fail, the figure represents him being chased by the teachers or the exam board, so we used the masked man in our ancillaries so that the concept of the masked man always being there continued through them. The white rabbit and fox masks are very good at creating a band image, you need a band image to effectively promote the band, and you need band image to grab the audience attention. These props, the masks, used really catch the audience’s attention because they are very unusual. Also the white of the mask really stands out and makes people see and recognise it. so we decided to use synergy, the cooperation of two or more substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects, this is important because it creates a bigger effect on the audience, and use this all the way across our productions tasks, the music video and the ancillaries. We also keep the band image across all the ancillaries’ tasks of it being in the woods and using the Photoshop filter cut-out to keep the same effects. Also we kept the typography the same so that the audience would recognise it anywhere. Doing this meant that people should recognise and make the connection in their head that they are from the same artist, so if they have seen the music video then this makes it easy for them to go out and buy the digipack as it is easy to recognise. Using the mask made we could simply make all the productions connect and link as it is quite a unique band image.

When making all the productions link we wanted to make the image of the masked man in the woods to be as recognisable as possible. So we kept the costume of the masked man the same all the way through, this meant people could easily identify digipacks and adverts. When creating the ancillaries we used the same colour scheme, in Photoshop we kept the colours very natural colours of browns greens, black and white. The typography on all of the ancillaries was created in Photoshop using the text tool and I made the text white using the text box colour drop down box. I tried to make everything link well, the magazine advert picture of the masked man is the same that is used for the front of the digipack this creates a good connection. We wanted a natural feel, we used browns and greens to give it a grunge/ hipster feel, these colours worked very well with the suit and the mask as it made them stand out, this grabbed the audience’s attention. The trees you can see on the ancillaries are trees from the filming location so this makes it work a lot better as people may recognise the shot from the music video.

The three production pieces really create an effective band image as it is unique and grabs the audience’s attention as it has a sense of disjuncture and mystery. The cutout tool in Photoshop we used adds dramatic and distorted effect, this works really well with the band image of the masked man being mysterious. It also makes the audience think it is not real or like someone has painted it or drawn it after seeing this in their dreams, this is what we wanted because the guy at the bus stop in our music video is day dreaming. They way this is also links to the genre of indie and it is quite creative, just like a lot of other indie digipacks and magazine adverts. We didn’t want to follow too much of the typical conventions of indie artist digipaks, we wanted to incorporate a few styles of make it more unique. We had a look at grunge artists and hipster artists, this showed us a range of colours and styles and we could make it more appealing for a younger and fashionable audience. The trees on the ancillaries could convey that the music is quite chilled out and relaxing.

The magazine advert is effective in getting your band advertised because it enables for your target audience to see their favourite music in artists in their favourite magazines, also putting it in magazines will give the audience dates of album release or concert dates. Putting it in the correct magazine will make the bands audience larger. But this type of promotion only works if it is placed in the correct magazine. For example if our band was to place its advert in a rock magazine like Kerrang, the promotion on the production wouldn’t be that affective and only a few people like that genre music may see it. This adverting should be placed either in a magazine like a current pop magazine like “We heart Pop” or an indie magazine like “Indie Mag”. The advert needs to be placed in a magazine that has a similar or same target audience as the band, this is because would be the main magazine there target audience use and read meaning they would get a lot more interest from that magazines readers and viewers, this means that their advert would be very effective. If I had to place my magazine advert in an actual magazine I would choose “ Indie Mag” because its reads are just like out target audience and the magazine has many similar artists in it  and this magazine would be good for promoting our band.

Our band is a currently in fashion, a lot of young people will enjoy their genre and style of music. A young target audience would tend to use new modern technologies, like spofify, facebook, Itunes and other things like sound could. But people would also buy the music from stores like HMV and CEX, the digipak would sell very well in these stores as people want actual copies of the music they can hold and look at. But putting it on digital music technologies like itunes would potentially sell more copies as younger people tend to use these services more than going out and buying a copy. Its a lot easier and people are more likely to purchase thing online now so they don’t have to leave the comfort of their own home. It’s easier because on the internet everything is at your fingertips, take Itunes for example, you search on itunes on your phone or your computer and the song will appear and you only need to pay a small amount like 99p for a song, this is so much easier and you get to keep that forever, whereas if you had a hard copy of the song or album you may lose it.  Used decide like professional companies to promote our artist on the internet services and in stores, this is because it will get much more sales. We can also see intertextuality in my ancillaries as it shows social media and places to buy it, also the use of the masks in our ancillaries was used throughout all our work and it was inspired from music videos like “Paradise by Coldplay” and “Animals by Martin Garrix”

The music promotion itself will also been shown off to the general public. Recent advances in technology means now that you can watch promos online, most people tend to watch it on YouTube. Not so long ago only music channels could show music promos, if you didn’t choose the right channel to promote your artist on it could make the artist go unnoticed, so you have to choose the right channel, which has correct or similar target audience. Using social media is an effective as it can aid the spread of the promos, as on the internet you can share things on social networking sites like facebook or twitter. These sites are used by many teens and young adults, this suits the target audience. Also the use of smartphones has made access to things a lot easier and it can also making finding and buying songs easier. Also it makes it easier for the promo to be seen any time anywhere by anyone, this means the bands audience should continue to constantly grow and grow. The downside to putting the promo on music TV channels is that more people are using the internet now and on the internet unlike the TV, you don’t have to wait for the song to come on, you can play it anytime you want.

Nowhere days everything is linked via the internet, you post a video on YouTube and it doesn’t take long for the video to go viral and for it to been seen whole world. Using the internet is probably the best exhibition method there is. There are so many social networking sites that enable to people to share everything and create fan pages and groups, this is good for bands and artists as they can have a page where they post everything and anyone around the world can look at it, and once one person shares it the another and another and another, it’s the fastest way to grow your audience was you can post images, upload videos and audio and information about the band. The internet is very useful. Good websites for this band to get know would be soundcloud, this is where everybody finds new artists, YouTube is good because you can watch music videos and quickly share them with other people. Another website that’s good for artists that are just starting out and want to get signed is a website called Unsigned.com.

A few years ago music channels, music channels really revolutionised the music industry. MTV in 1977 as small TV network, it is now a multi-national, multi-billion pound company. The effect of the creation of MTV on the music industry was very beneficial to the industry. It is a reflection of the audience of the teenager music fan of the early 80s. At the beginning, many artists used the new music platform to promote their music on an international level and continue to this day. This new platform allowed music artists to promote on a mass scale that made never been seen before. But unlike before the artist would judge on the mainly on the musicality of their song or the style of the artist playing live but on the visual shown in their music video. Marketing the video became key because videos were the main focus of MTV because it was easy to show them and quickly.

Question 1

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

We were asked to promote an upcoming artist by creating different elements of media. These should promote the artist quite well. The different types of media we had to create were a music video, a magazine advert and a digipack. The artist who we choose to promote was Finn Riggins and then song we used by them was called Benchwarmers. We found them on YouTube and we checked if they were unsigned. The song is very catchy and we believed we could do many shots types with it. When creating the three different media promotions we had to make them all link and look similar, they all had to have synergy to work well together. This is so that if someone sees one of these promotions they should recognize it and if they have seen the music video they should recognize the digipack or magazine advert. We had to also look at typical conventions of each of these promotional products, to make them look professional and to make sure we adhere to the promotional products conventions.

When creating a music video you need to think about many elements and things. You need to create a memorable music video as its main job is to be remembered and promote the artist and their music. You have to look at past videos, do you research and understand different conventions of each genre, to be able to create a good video and adhere to your chosen genre. A lot of music videos today have a narrative or performance, but a lot more videos now incorporate them both to make an effective and interesting music video. When creating a music video there is a repertoire of elements that make up an effective music video. One element is performance, this is where they are filmed while playing their instruments or if they are singer the will be singing in time with the track, but most of the time they will just mime it. For a lot of house and pop music the shots of performance are normally shot in front of a large crowed, an example of this is “DVBBS- Raveheart”  and sometimes this crowed isn’t real and is added later. But performance shots by alterative and indie are normally shot on lower budgets, so they are shot in recording studios and maybe odd locations like a field, wood or barn. An example of this is “Vampire Weekend- Cousins, this is shot down an ally way. In our music promo we filmed our perforce pieces mainly against a white wall to keep it clean and simple, but we also film a few other lip syncing shots to get a variety of shots, we also did this because we don’t have a large budget and a crowed wouldn’t fit our music videos idea. Another element is Narrative; native is widely used by a lot of music videos. It really makes the song so much more memorable and makes people want to keep re-watching the song. There are three key types of music video narrative, Illustration, disjuncture and amplification. Illustration is simple; it just illustrates the ideas and lyrics of the song. Amplification is where a lyric of the idea of the song is created and expended upon; it has a bigger meaning and links to the lyrics more. Disjuncture is where the lyrics don’t link to music video at all, it’s quite abstract and it’s unconventional, but also it can rally make the audience think about the video and it might have a much deeper meaning and the meaning could be different to each person. These three types of video are suggested by Andrew Goodwin’s theory.  Another element is camerawork, this is key obviously, because without this then the video wouldn’t be good. Depending of the genre of music the camerawork style will change. In a lot of pop and indie performance clips from promos, the main shots are close ups, mid shots with a few long shots, this is so you can see the artist playing their instruments and singing and their facial expressions. Sometimes long shots and extreme long shots are used to show an audience. A lot of music videos try to use a range of shots but some artist use one type of shot in their video, like vampire weekend for example, in their ‘Cousins’ video they only used one type of shot just changed the direction of the shot. The cinematography in the videos normally shows was happening or a story. The camera is used to make the audience want to keep watching and to make it very interesting. The camera work of our music video is very good for telling a story as it isn’t hard to follow and is quite clear. We also tried to experiment with shots by changing the tilt on them and moving the camera in a certain way to make it more appealing. Also for one of the lip sync shots we tried spinning the camera to make it look different. Another element to music videos is editing. A key apart of editing a music video is called cutting to the beat, this makes the shot change or cut at the same time as the beat. This is used by pretty much every signal artist and music video. An example of this is “Showtek ft. We Are Loud & Sonny Wilson – Booyah”. In this music video when the beat drops the shots start changing in time with the main beat. This really sets the tempo for the video, this makes it quite exciting, but this video is also because it doesn’t cut to the beat consistently, this is good because it mean that it won’t look the same all the way through making the song reparative and boring. Music videos are quite similar to TV key events have cuts so music videos can be cut at key points in the song as well. Another element is actors, if a music video is mainly performance then is more than likely that the singer in the video will be the real artist singer. But if you have a narrative and performance the person in the performance is normally different to the main actor in the narrative, an example of this is Adele’s Skyfall. It switches between her singing and James bond. You do get videos where the singer is an actor in the narrative; a good example is this is Stan by Eminem. In our music video we have used the singer as the main actor in it. Eminem’s song is about one of his fans trying to get his attention and then dies, Eminem tell the story with the performance and acts in the narrative. The actors chosen for pop videos are chosen because they are seen as society’s ideal person, in the way they look. These people are used to grab the audience’s attention. Pop music and their videos meant to mainly appeal to a younger audience of young adults and teens. The actors used are normally people they can relate to or someone they look up to or someone that they want to be like. Also pop videos normally show some sort of wealth and this is appealing to the young audience as well. Young people want to be wealthy, be attractive and have an attractive partner. Another element is mise-en-scene. The props in the music video tend to be quite important. Main props for are example instruments, microphones and speakers. These prop are used to make the audience recognise the artist, as they may use certain instruments to do with that artist. These props are used to make it look like the band members are playing the song. Also two key props are the phone which plays the song that enables ups to bring the song into play in a natural way and make the audience fell like it’s their ears. Also another prop is the folder it plays a key role thought as he is dreaming of it and then it’s there at the end with the photo in it, making the character very paranoid and stressed about their work.

 

 

 

 

The shots of the lip syncing and performance are all mimed to make it look like they are playing and singing the track. Lighting in music videos is very important as they can show and determine the mood and genre of the music video. In the majority of music videos the main singer or artist is well lit. A lot of pop videos use bright lights to give it a happier feel, indie and alternative music videos tend to be quite dimmed to give it a grudge feel, and this follows their typical conventions, heavy metal is very dark, and only key things like faces or instruments are light up. When we did the lip syncing we used a green screen and a large industrial light, this made seem slightly more professional and it linked into the two genres of indie and pop, this made the music video slight more interesting. But I believe that the shadow that is left behind makes it look a little odd. Filming indoors is good at the weather won’t affect us and the lighting should change. Costumes are used in all music videos, a lot of pop videos will either be dressed in really bright bold colours or maybe even really extravagate costumes, whereas indie tends to be quite casual or sometimes start, this genre is mainly for young adults and late teenagers as they can relate to it. The costumes are similar to everyday clothes worn by their audience. The locations are also very important to the genres typical conventions.  The typical locations for a pop video are normally filmed in a music studio or a lighting studio to give it a clean finish and the correct lighting. The set colours tend to be quite bold and bright. Using a set can be very beneficial to any genre as you can get the right colours and lighting effects to suit the genre. Rock and house tend to film there performance shots in front of large open crowds. Rap and hip hop are filmed at certain places to show wealth or parties, these locations show off a rappers typical lavish life style. The location tends to relate to the song, but as our song is set in a day dream then we can set the location to any where we want.

Alongside music videos to promote and artist, digipaks and a magazine advert. Digipaks are like a deluxe edition of a cd case, it’s made for card not a hard plastic. Digipaks are normally foldable; they fold out to reveal text, images and the cd. They tend to have additional information about the artist or the main song in the album. It’s very appealing to big fans of an artist as it can be seen as a collector’s item, making them very special.  Digipak sometime contains extra feature like a poster, or booklet or a bonus cd. The magazine advert is used to advertise and promote the artist; these are mainly found in music and gossip magazines. The magazine advert should be very synergetic with digipak, they should look similar. They will also give very valuable information of the artist and their release dates and tour dates, also where you can buy it from and links to the social media. It has to be very appealing and eye catching.

Our chosen artists music, falls under the genre of indie. Once we knew this we began to research the genre. We did this to understand its typical conventions. Also most indie artists, in their music video like to preform and sing, they tend to be close ups and mid-shots, this is so you can clearly see that its them singing and preforming, this also shows their expressions. They sometimes preform in front of a crowd making them look population and in with current music, but they also use other unusual locations as well like woods and barns, for example Mumford and Sons do this. This just makes them more interesting. Also some music videos will jump from one performance shot of their being not crowd to one with crowd as this good show their journey to fame. These are very similar to our performance pieces, all of our lip syncing shots are similar and people you will see throughout the video. We adhere to the genre, we used close ups for the singing and chose to use a slightly different locations. But we subvert in the performance pieces as we didn’t perform with any instruments, we tried to be slightly different as we wanted to be a little different to the genre and we can’t play instruments in real life. The performance shots have the animal mask in it which is seen throughout the whole video this is done to make the story and performance link, this makes it much more interesting, this is also typical of the indie genre, link the narrative to the performance in some way. The typical narrative of the indie genre is a story that links to the lyrics. We slightly subverted this as we chose to do a narrative that has a story but doesn’t link to the lyrics. Most indie songs are about a memory, an experience or a feeling, the typical theme to indie is love, heartbreak and stress. Like I said our song doesn’t link to the lyrics, but it does adhere to the genre as the story is of a guy who is suffering from stress as his media work is stressing him out. We took inspiration from many different artists and genres; the mask idea was inspired from Martin Garrix – Animals. Our music videos is disjuncture as it doesn’t match the lyrics, this can be seen as adhering and subverting as it follows the conventions of the mood a feeling of the genre, but it also makes not links to the lyrics. Its defiantly not illustrative, our video isn’t that simple. The costumes used in the indie genre are very ordinary and this makes it easy for the audience to relate to the music video, this isn’t always that interesting. Some indie music videos I have seen use a few different costumes just to make it slightly more interesting, Mumford and Sons clothes look slightly old fashioned, similar to southern American clothing from the 1920/30s, and this keeps the audience interested. To make our video a bit more interesting we chose to have the lip syncing shots done in suits and the person who is following the guy in the day dream is also in a suit, this disguises his identify and we wonder who he is. We adhered to the indie genre of slightly changing the outfits. We tried to keep the costume of the day dream different to the costume of the lip sync so that people don’t get confused and can’t tell the difference. The style of clothing used in the day dream is quite “hipster”, this fashion type is wearing slightly old and vintage style pieces of clothing, this is very typical of the indie genre as this is the type of clothing that their main part of their audience wear and it also makes it easier for their fans to relate. This style is quite fashionable at the moment. The main actor in the music video, this clothing in the day dream is very dull colours; this can show a sense of stress as his jeans that are grey connote isolation as nobody can help him with his stress; it also connotes emptiness and lack of motivation. Blue on his jumper could imply or connote that he is very depressant and sad as his media work is too hard.

 

 

 

 

Sets we use for preforming was just a white wall or a green screen, we used an industrial light. Using a green screen enabled us to change the background to the performance pieces easily and quickly, we changed the back ground inside of the editing software we used. We also did a lot of filming in the woods and suburban areas, the bus top was a good idea because it’s like he’s trying to escape his work and drive away, but he has the day dream and doesn’t catch the bus to leave on a journey, he goes home to get on with is media work. The day dream of the wood is his “happy place” in his mind but it is invaded and ruined by the mysterious s stranger. He thinks his home is safe in his day dream but it isn’t, he just can’t escape his work. These locations are where teenagers and young adults can relate to.

 

 

 

 

 The target audience is mainly teenagers and young adults, indie is a current music genre as a lot of young people can relate to it, also they are the most likely to watch music channels and watch the music videos on YouTube. Most indie song focus on things that can be quite stressful, like education, relationships, and family problems or just general stress you get at this age. We believed we could use this to appeal to teenagers. As we are a similar age we can understand this lot, so we decide to make a music video story based off of the stress of education and it can also play with your mind, we have tried to show this using the man in the suit with the animal mask representing authority or the school chasing him down. We choose a black suit or him as it connotes the authority and control, maybe even death, as he is trying to escape it. The location we filmed at was quite typical of our chosen artist genre. We used a green screen and I white wall to create a makeshift studio, we did the white wall shots at my house and the green screen shots were done at Marcus’s house. I believe the green screen looks fairly good but we could have made it much more professional as the angle of the light we used makes the large shadow on the green screen making it look slightly odd, but other than that it looks pretty good. The other locations adhere to the indie genre as its quite natural and free/open space locations, also the house and the woods are very relatable to teenagers, as the woods may have been a place where they used to play when they were younger and they can relate to a normal house, this can also help teenagers understand other people have the same problems and they aren’t alone. When setting up the shots and locations we had to really thing how we want the sets as they can set the mood of the story and music video. We had to make sure the continuity of the shots were right and we also tried to use a couple of “grudgy” locations to adhere to the indie genre as it sometimes tries to incorporate a grudge feel to it.

There were a couple of music videos that influenced us while in the research, planning and production stages. One video that really influenced our production was Martin Garrix – Animals, it really showed us what we could do with animal masks and also how to cut to the beat affectively. The people with the masks are seen as a gang/bad as they go around together and they set a car on fire. This showed them to be quite evil, so we took this idea and thought why don’t we make it so that person following the guy in the day dream is wearing a mask so that he as a sense of mystery, and people who don’t want to deified stereotypically are bad or a criminal. We wanted our mask wearer to be evil. It also showed us that you don’t always have to cut to the beat, but you need to a key moments within the song to keep the audience interested.

 

Another video that influenced our production was Bleachers – Rollercoaster, this is a very indie track. It really showed us what we could do with the camera if we had the budget for some on the shots. But the key thing that influenced us from the start of the video is that the music doesn’t start straight away, it’s all quiet at the start of the song until a car horn “beeps” and then the music starts to begin, we decided to do something similar at the start of our video. We added the ambient sound of wind and three shots later when the guy presses the play button on his phone and the music starts playing.

 

Another really influential music video is Ed Sheeran - The A Team, it’s all about the struggles of being young and homeless, and being in very stressful situations like drug use and selling your body for sex. The style of the video really set a high bench mark for emotional turmoil, it really helped me think about how a depressed person may feel. Also the effects used are very good, it makes the video feel very sad and depressive. I wanted use this back and white filter to make my music video fell more stress full.

 

My productions costumes are also influenced from a song by Higher Self ft. Lauren Mason called Ghosts. The costumes in this are everyday office wear and casual wear. I want this type of clothing as this video is shot in winter and my music video is shot in autumn, so this could mean summer is over and now he is depressed and the thought of failing his education makes him feel cold as he is worried. Winter connotes death. In this video there is snow everywhere and he can’t escape work, the white snow could connote a void in his life, or boredom. We wanted to incorporate something similar into the  video so we choose to hair winter clothing and the white masks could represent lack of motivation and the unknown like he doesn’t know here to begin with his work.

 

There were a few digipak that influenced my work, I don’t think there was a specific one we based our ideas off, it was all our own ideas. Just looking a wide range of digipaks there were quite a few typical conventions you’d almost see on every digipak even if their artists were form different genres. A lot of digipaks have the song names in the centre on the back of the digipack so we decided to stick with this as it will make it look more realistic. We wanted to make the digipak be clean; this gives it a professional look and feel. We were going to leave the sides blank but it’s a typical convention to put the lyrics on the inside panels, so we added this but we kept the text small. Our cover of our digipak is of the stranger with the mask on, in a cut out form, this is done to like the guy has seen this stranger in his day dreams and can’t escape him so he has drawn him out. On our digipak we have tried to add the correct minor details to make it look as professional as possible. We adhered to typical indie digipak conventions as we used earthy colours like browns, greens ,yellow, quite dull colour, it give it a sense of grudge which his consistent thought the productions. The colours used have been influenced from a lot of indie digipaks, they are all use pastel colours. We wanted out magazine advert to very synergetic, because when you look at the able cover we want the audience to instant recognize it and thing of the magazine advert or the other way around, we wanted them to look very similar. We had a look at Two Door Cinema Club’s magazine advert, it was very plain, flesh and clean. It really help as it was easy to get influenced by it and it showed us what you can to with a studio, also you don’t need a lot of clutter on your advert, less is more. The colour scheme was very simplistic and clean. All of the important text is slightly small than the title, this is done so the title grabs your attention first and then you look at the key details. Another good feature was the stars on the bottom, wasn’t many just two or three reviews to keep the advert looking professional and clean. The main subject in our advert is the cut out image of the mysterious masked stranger; this instantly grabs the audience’s attention as it is very eye unusual and eye catching. The next bit you see it’s the artists name and the title of their new song or album, this informs the audience who the artist and their new single is. Then underneath that, it follows conventions of an advert perfectly of having the release date and reviews under the title, all neatly in place. It tells the audience all the information they need.

When editing we did many things to make the video the way it is. Typical of nearly very music video promo ever made, we cut to the beat. We make the shots change on the major beats, this makes it look professional and in time, also we can’t cut to the beat all the time as it may get slightly boring so it’s best to cut to the beat at events in the narrative or the song. Another piece of editing was we made the fifth and last shot fade to black; this made a good start to the song and the end to the music video. Between a few shots there are straight cuts to black this creates a quick and easy transition. For a few of the clips we had to change the timing of them, we spend a few shots up and slowed a few shots down to make it all work, we also used this tool to make the time lapse of the geese in the pond, we spend it up quite a lot. We also used a green screen to easily add our own back drops to the performance pieces. We also had to flip some of the shots to get a variety in lip syncing, that is also done quite simply.  Also of these different techniques are used by every music genre, but indie would also use them to make an affective music video, a lot of indie videos cut to the beat consistently and they use a lot of straight cuts, I leave we have followed the genres typical conventions.sss

This shot is of the main actor and singer, this close mid shot is just after he clicks play on his phone, his costume is very normal and a teenager/ young adult audience can relate to the fashion, it has a lot of meaning as the blue represents sadness/depression. In this shot his face expression is very neutral as he may have things playing on his mind, which he does as you find out later in the song. This shot pans up to the sky and transitions by fading to black

This shot here is the first time we see the masked character. This is a partial over the shoulder shot, which is a mid-shot and an extreme long shot. This shot is cut to the beat and when the main actor turns around it skips out the middle of the turn to be in time with the song.

This shot here is a close up; this type of shot is good for this clip as we want to be able to see the mouth lip sync the lyrics of the song. The lighting of the shot is quite moody and this follows the grudge appeal of indie. It also makes this character look sinister and that is what we were aiming for.