Storyboards

As our ideas and concept has developed we have altered and changed the shots that we wanted in the final video. This has meant that the music video will not follow exactly how we planned in our original storyborads. Howvere we feel that because we have incorporated our original ideas with the new they have created a more successsful result.
Currently we are editing the first set of film that we have taken. The editing process is where we are now changing and adapting how the final outcome will be. This is where we can change the colours and speeds of the shots to give the alternative result we are after.



Here are our original storyboards:

Dates of shooting/editing and deadlines.

At present most of our research is complete and up to date, we have organised our shot list, risk assessment, story boards, actors, date and time of filming and prop/location. This means that we are ready to film. Our chosen time to film is at night to add to the feeling of loneliness, and add to the dark, mysterious character that our actor is portraying. The date is 7th December, we plan to film tonight and have our rough cut complete by the 18th December, we hope before. 

21st January 2010.

We evaluated where we wanted to go from this date, we found that we did have our rough cut completed before christmas (the 18th December). However after working towards our final cut, we believe we needed more footage to ensure our aim for the narrative was spread out to the audience. We have filmed more footage and have nearly completed our final task. Our new deadline for our final cut is 5th February. The ancillary tasks need to be completed by the 12th February. We understand we need more detailed research in our ancillary tasks to ensure the main piece is backed up and the whole package is as good as we can. 

Shot list

Our shot list is quite repetitive as we wanted to show her life as it is repetitive. She does the same things over and over, we want to reflect how she feels trapped in this one room, where she works, sleeps, gets ready and eats. 

All shots are taken in the bedroom.

We want a variety of different close ups from all angles to give different view from all areas. Birds eye views will be best used to show her environment, for example the messy bedroom and to create a feeling of loneliness. Extreme close ups to show the audience the detail of the actor, and her emotion. Medium shots used to show the whole body of the actor or her surroundings.

Medium shot of girl in the bed.

Medium shot, camera zooms out.

Close up of her washing her face.

Close up of legs putting her tights on from the left.

Close up of legs putting her tights on from the right.

Close up of shoulder and bra strap.

Close up from her view looking down on the mess, reaches for the perfume, camera is jolty.

Close up of behind her.

Side close up, picks the perfume up, camera zooms in.

Perfume is sprayed from a point of view shot, the camera becomes her eyes.

Medium shot used of empty bedroom.

Close up of red lips.

Medium shot as she throws lipstick on the floor, slows down.

Birds eye view of messy bedroom.

Medium shot of her holding a top up to herself.

Medium shot used of empty bedroom.

Medium shot of her on the bed.

Close up of her face.

Close up of candle burning and make up.

Medium shot of her sitting on the bed.

Medium shot of her standing next to the bed.

Medium shot of her looking in the mirror.

Medium shot of her standing next to the bed.

The rest of our shots will be repeated in different orders and our editing is extremely important, we will be changing the colours (red is our prominent colour in some shots, highlighting her lips/ hair), textures and creating similarities and contrasts with the shots.

The colour red represents lust, poison, passion, anger, vibrancy and is very outstanding. This colour symbolises the emotions and feelings that the actor is going through day in, day out.

Actor and Costumes

Our chosen actor was based upon the criteria that we felt would fit in with our story boards, which is someone who is aesthetically good looking and quirky, also someone who is feminine but edgy. With this criteria we chose Emily Jeffery, she is perfect for our brief as she does performing arts and will not be afraid to "act" out what we would want for our music video and to make it the best that it can be. Her profile is tall, skinny, she has dark hair and a tattoo, however she has a very versatile look meaning we can adapt her to whatever style we want her to look like. Naturally she is a fiery character which will link to our feminism research of her having the "upper hand" in the situation we want to highlight in our video. Overall we believe as a group that this is the best choice we could have made. 

The costume which we are going for is very edgy and classy although bordering on trashy. We have tried to make it "fashion Vs art", with the character being a prostitute/escort. We didn't want to make it completely trashy, it then becomes more artistic, which will link to our experiences of being art students. We will be dressing our actor in one outfit in the whole of the video, changing only her make-up and hair. The outfit we have chosen are low denier tights, short skirt/dress, low cut top and platform heels, all in either black, grey or red, which is our chosen colour scheme.  

Risk Assessment

Here is the risk assessment that we have completed. It analyses all the risks and accidents thats could occur during the filming of our video. 

It is useful to do this because it helps us to think about all the details linked to filming including how our creative thoughts have had an impact on the technical aspects of it. 

Chosen project

24th November 09

After reflecting on our first post we have realized that we have become more analytical and can explain why we have chosen to do our project in a much more detailed way.

This project allows us to be extremely creative and as art students we feel this is best suited to us compared to the other briefs. It gives us a challenge and allows us to go down many different paths and develop not only our ideas but the audiences too. 

The project will allow us to portray our ideas and experiences through things we have researched and studied such as feminism and other different theories. The final cut will therefore be a product of our ideas and how we have related to the different theories and what we have learnt from them. It is ideally suited to us because we can be highly creative and execute a "piece of art" in itself. 

Furthermore we have a more in-depth knowledge of the music industry because of our previous project which was to create a music magazine. We have had an insight into the industry and what works and what doesn't. However because this is a video it gives us a new challenge and new ideas to work with. 

1st December

How important are your experiences to your creativity? 

Our experiences are extremely important because they influence our outlook on life and how we think about certain issues. Creativity can be affected by many different things, whether its influences, experiences or the media. We feel that our experiences are the main factor affecting our creative thoughts. We can reflect back on certain things that have affected us and how this made us feel. We can then adapt this to our video. 

Could you be specific?

For example when the girl in the video feels lonely. From past experiences when we have felt lonely or seen others who are lonely we can understand the emotions that go with this, the colors associated with that emotion and how it should be portrayed. 

As we have already discussed we are both art students and have a creative outlook on life. Our minds are creatively challenged everyday, not just in our work but in our experiences. So as this shows it is a cycle where both creativity and experiences influence and affect each other.  

Can people of your age be as creative as older people with more experiences?
Sometimes having more experiences can be limiting because it gives you an outlook on many things rather than using creative ideas which are new and fresh. Older people do have more worldliness than younger people however if everyone were to have had the same experiences then it would never work because our opinions and outlooks would all be the same. 

People of our age can be as creative as older people because their outlook is new and vibrant. However it does depend on the individual and all the factors that affect their lives everyday. 

Could you be very specific about how your AS project feeds into your A2 project?

Our previous AS project was to design a music magazine including the front cover, contents page and double page spread. It feeds straight into out A2 project because it influences our ideas on music magazines, the music industry and how the institutions feed music to the audiences. 

In particular it will help us to make the music advertisement and c.d. cover because we have looked at how magazines advertise products. The music video has been influenced because on our previous AS project we were the institution that music producers had advertise and link their work back to in order to sell music. 

Questionnaire Results

The results coincide with what we predicted, as the song is appropriate generally for all age groups, however, would only be understood by late teens and older. This age group is who we want to aim our music video at, as we feel it's best suited, because it's a difficult song to understand, and with the ideas of our music video being ironic and different, in co-ordination with the song tempo and atmosphere, we want to make sure that the viewers aren't confused or bewildered, but intrigued and excited.

This helps us because it tells us what the audience feels from the song, and how we can show these emotions in our video, using different forms of image, colour and narrative. By knowing the emotions the audience experiences from the song, we are able to adapt the video to these emotions in a style that is controversial.

The Plain White T's, Hey there Delilah video is in a similar style that we want to create, we felt it was necessary to question people about which emotions they felt after watching/listening to the video. The results show that the video's intentions were to create the feeling of loneliness, and the mass of the results show that our audience felt this. 

The genre we feel suits our chosen song, wouldn't necessarily fit into the genre "pop", so this was a suprise to us because from the other answers to our questions, the results weren't suprising at all. This probably shows us that the song we have chosen fits into a niche market that isn't necessarily liked and preferred by the general population. 

To show our use of technology, we decided to do a interview of our questionnaire and film it, then post it on youtube. This is what we got. 

Our Progress

At this stage, where our storyboards, shot list, prop list, textual analysis are all complete, we have influence from things such as feminism and academic texts that have accredited to our coursework and our idea for the final music video. We are ready to film! All we need to do is a risk assessment, and compile our results from our questionnaire, this will defer our audience and style.

Interpreting, Understanding and Applying an Academic Text

Being Discovered: The emergence of female address on MTV.

Lisa A. Lewis

Since MTV's inception in 1981, the issue of sexism has been a recurring and insistent theme in both popular and academic criticism. But the charge of sexism, while it importantly foregrounds issues of textual politics, too frequently treats MTV as a monolithic textual system, and sexism as a static and ahistorical mode of representation written into media textuality. Music video does bring together two cultural forms that have notorious histories as promulgators of female objectification - rock music and televisual imagery. And specific textual examples of women in chains, caged boxes and strewn across sets in skimpy leather outfits can certainly be called upon to justify such claims. But focusing exclusively on the sexist representations present in many male-addressed videos overshadows the emergence on MTV of an aggregate of videos produced to songs sung by female musicians, and their enormous popularity among female fans.

MTV's role in the rise of female musicianship

In the years leading up to the start of music video promotion, female rock musicians were struggling for recognition both as vocalist( the traditional female niche) and as instrumentalists and composers. The contemporary women's movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s provided momentum for change, as did the early punk movement in Britain at the end of the 1970s. Although punk emerged essentially as a working-class male subculture, Hebdige (1983) makes the point that punk included a minority of female participants who aggressively tried to carve out a specifically female form of expression, a sharp contrast to the usual subsuming of women by subcultural phallocentricism. 

Punk propelled girls onto the stage and once there, as musicians and singers, they systematically transgressed the codes governing female performance... These performers have opened up a new space for women as active participators in the production of popular music. (Hebdige 1983: 83-5)

In our group, we broke down this academic text, finding out words and phrases that we weren't familiar with, then we used google to define them for us. This then helped us to understand the text more.

Inception- The first part/beginning of a series of other things.

Monolithic- Massive or imposing in size.

Static- Unchanging.

Ahistorical- Unrelated to history.

Textuality- The attitudes that distinguish the text.

Promulgators- A public statement containing information.

Aggregate- Sum up the whole amount. 

Engaging with an academic text

Sound and Vision, Goodwin et al 1993.

Popular music and post-modernism in the 1980's, (Will Straw)

The thing that stands out about recent writings about music videos is the importance about the changes in subjects and their theories in cultures. 

Music videos are the latest of important examples of media texts that show how the media is developing. 

Music videos didn't fit with any existing academic area. 

Post structuralism is an era, where things don't fit into categories, music videos exemplifies that era. 

Music videos haven't been written about for very long, originally they came from the rock culture. 

Artists are scared because image is very important, more important than the music. It's to do with vanity and this threatens the music industry. 

The music video limits the listener in the imagination so they don't enjoy music as much. 

Engaging this academic text with reference to our coursework and blog

This text claims that music videos are influenced by the changes in different academic subjects, and that they are a convulsion of them and their different theories. For example, in our music video, image is extremely important, because we are representing a stereotype, and best trying to portray this with the use of image. We are influenced by being art students, where knowing the impact of line, color, form and texture, and see it as extremely important. These theories are important in concern of how we are reflective on ourselves and what we want to portray in our music video, based upon our experiences and theories/subjects in which we have been influenced by. 

Will Straw states that the production values of the developing media is indicative of the time that it is produced. The technology used and quality of picture, sound and editing show the audience what time this is produced in. A music video produced in the 80's would be entirely different to one produced in 2009, because of the development of technologies, ideas and theories, plus the broadening of subjects. Music videos are extremely focused, however, involve areas from subjects, that effect the audience on a personal level, for example, we are wanting to highlight feminism, prostitution, and relationships, which can come from subjects such as history, psychology and religious studies, also media, and music. Music videos are developing from the interaction and freedom of these different subjects, technology, theories, and creative ideas. They don't fit into an academic area, they interact with each other. The music video made, is indicative of the era that it is produced, the post structuralism of the recent times, where development of technology and ideas is at its upmost.

Straw's idea is that the history of music videos was created by the late capitalist societies, their culture and their ideas. He believes this began from influential rock and jazz cultures, and that their is an important link between these rebellious cultures and the music video and it's style. In our coursework, we support this idea by highlighting things that people wouldn't usually feel comfortable with seeing or talking about. We want to provoke an emotion from the audience so that is has an effect on the music itself, and highlight the song, in light of what they are being shown, because we understand the song can be interpreted in different ways, we want to show the audience our way of thinking. The emotion itself will be something they are not used to feel, as it is an uncomfortable subject that they are being shown, and it can provoke different emotions, but they will be intrigued and interested.

Image is highly important to us, however, what is image if the image isn't for your own benefits. This is where feminism comes into our category of prostitution. She sees it as a benefit for her, not for the men she sleeps with, it shows her doing something she likes for money, which could be seen as a benefit, and give her the upper hand, using men for their advantages. However different audiences see different. They could see the opposite, depending on their own experiences and life. 

How To Analyse A Music Video

A theory of how to analyse a music video, devised by Andrew Goodwin writing in "Dancing in the Distraction Factory" (Routledge 1992)

Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band).

-Our planning for our music video doesn't demonstrate any of this, we would think an acoustic song would have the artist playing his/her guitar, a simple video. However, we have chosen to contradict this by making the video more interesting and dynamic. 

There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).

-We believe that this is the main importance of a music video, otherwise, the two have little relevance with each other. We have analysed the lyrics in depth so that the lyrics and our story board are linked together, making it simple for the audience to understand, but still being ironic. The song we have chosen is the narrative to our music video, which is why we believe this point is necessary for a music video.

There is a relationship between music and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting)

-Our music video, which we have planned, will have quite a fast paced flow of shots, however we have chosen an acoustic song, which is quite slow and calming. This is where we have differed from the theory, as we wanted to create irony and make the filming different and alternative, rather than having a slow paced video, making a strong relationship with the music.

The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style). 

-Our music video doesn't include the artist, so this differs from this theory, and our story board doesn't outline any major close ups where you can see all of the actors face. We thought this would be better as it keeps the facial emotion minimal, and creates a mystery for the audience, not knowing entirely who they are watching. 

There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screes within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

-Our planning shows actions through mirrors, 

Audience Theories

The Hypodermic Needle Model

This theory is relatively dated as it was created when cinema and radio were less than two decades old. The main point is that information from a media text is passively received by the audience and not taken into consideration or understood by them, they have no control of this. The idea is that this information could be used to manipulate the audience, and when research was done on advertising and the Hypodermic Needle model, it was understood that audiences could re-act information that they had been shown. The government understood this and used propaganda after the first world war, this theory was very popular. This is why that it is used to explain why certain groups in society shouldn't be exposed to certain media texts. (comedy in the 1950's and rap music in 2000's) as it was believed that if they were shown sexual and violent behavior, that they would therefore act this out themselves. This theory was seen by media producers for them to have a huge impact on the audience, and the power to influence them in which ever way they please.

We believe that if we took this model into consideration in our coursework, the story line that we have created, wouldn't be the case, as this theory says that audience passively receive the information and will then (as they don't understand it) re-act it. This would result in viewers re-acting the life of a prostitute, which is our chosen narrative. This would then mean we have to change our chosen narrative, based upon how free we feel we are as producers, and whether or not we want to stay within the guidelines of media production, or we want to ignore this theory and rebel against these guidelines. We have chosen to produce a music video that we feel has relevance to feminism, and the fact that media institutions such as FHM perceive women to be sexual objects, we want to bring this to a headline.

Two-Step Flow

This theory is more in depth than the Hypodermic Needle Model, it was felt that a more complicated reason of the relationship between the audience and the media text was needed. The Hypodermic Needle Model was seen as not taking into consideration the audience, and labeling them as "unthinking drones" as they are passive and heterogenous. The Two-Step Flow Model considers the audience to be less passive and gives them more gratification in concern of how they receive information and whether or not they understand it. 

The main idea is that information is not passively or unmediated but it is filtered through "opinion leaders", who then communicate this to their less active associates, over which they have influence over. The "opinion leaders" take away power from the media, and put it in the hands of powerful people who have the influence over others, they can interpret their own ideas and what they believe the media text is telling/showing. This theory takes into account social factors of the time, and not just the media as an influence. 

If we were to apply this theory to our coursework, the way in which people see our product would change in concern of who the opinion leaders are, this is because as the producers, the media product is then shown to opinion leaders, who decide what information they want to absorb, which is important and what conclusion they can get from this. This means our intention of the impact which we want to have on the audience could vary depending on again who is the opinion leader, and also what experiences they may have had in order to change the viewpoint of our media product. This means we would have to choose 

Textual Analysis

We have started to do our textual analysis to find out what sort of music videos have already been made and what they do to try and stand out. We want our video to stand out from the rest of the videos but we want it to reach a mass market of listeners that love great music and a great video to accompany the song. The song we have chosen is Jose Gonzales- Heartbeats. As this song is quite slow and calm we want the video to be a juxta position of the song and have quite fast paced editing and diverse range of camera angles and shots but yet still fit in with the story and melody of the song.

We have looked at videos that have this juxta position or something different that makes them stand out from the crowd. We have decided that we don’t want it to be too different from the song because otherwise the video will become too separate from the song. That is why it is important for us to make sure that the storyline and the actual plot of the video is in keeping with the lyrics of the song. We have printed off the lyrics so that we know properly what the song is all about.

The Knife - Heartbeats 

We have also watched the music video that was made by the Knife to the song Heartbeats that was made before Jose Gonzalez covered it. It is quite a fast version of the song and the video is quite alternative in its style. We decided that we would stick to using the Gonzalez version because it is more slow and will fit with the style of video we want to make.
In the Knifes version the video is quite colourful and uses quite bright colours on a black backdrop. The video is quite eye catching and memorable. It has a completely different message to what we originally thought after first listening to the Jose Gonzalez version. It is more alternative and modern in its style.

Coldplay-Fix You

Coldplays music videos are always exciting and a signature style always follows through. This video is no exception. The band usually always features in their music videos either in the background or as the leading parts.
Fix you begins with Chris Martin walking down a dark street under a bridge, the lighting is dark in places but bright highlighting his face in others. Furthermore a bright spotlight is used in the background which catches the cameras lense at time and creates a good effect of the streetlights or cars, this would look very effective in our video as the girl is walking down dark streets. At the beginning of the video a yellowy fleshy tone is given to the video which then contrasts to the later half which uses tones of reds and blues showing the change in mood and action in the video.
Although he is singing to the words he is almost slowed down as he is walking. This is very effective because it matches with the pace of the song. As the song begins to pick up and get more of a pace so does he and gradually he runs.
The angles used in the video begin with just medium shots but then progress to worms eye view where the camera is slighlty tilted. A combination of closeups and mdeium shots are used to show him moving with the camera and singing to the song. In addition he is rarely ever completely central to the video and stays either on the first or 3rd lines. The camera pans around him at times, showing him from different angles.
At points in the video it flash to clips of him in the stadium, they are short and snappy leaving the viewer wanting more, wanting to know how he is going to get there. Match on action is then used as the song builds and the pace is quickened, showing different locations and shots. The rest of the video is of the band performing in a stadium to thousands of people. It is a simple concept and not hugley excting but is lifted by using a variety of different shots-closeups, medium, long and birds eye. But it is complemented by the lights thats blur the video. The mise en scene is simple and no real props are used, he is dressed in black. The video is stripped back and easy to follow allwoing the viewer to concentrate on the music and as the band as performers.
We chose to analyse this video because we liked how it isnt too complicated and some of the effects used are very effective, such as the red lights and the contrasts of the slow to the fast shots. However we want our video to be a bit more exciting and to create a subtle story.

Paloma Faith-Stone Cold Sober
A much faster paced song than Heartbeats but a very interesting video with a variety of different effects and creative ideas.
The video starts slowly allowing for slower shots and low light colours. By editing some parts of the video and making them balck and white its creates a softer edge contarsting to the brighter colours used in other shots. Bright lights are used in other shots which are almost too bight making the contrast very high, this adds to the alternative edge on the video make it very interesting to the viewer. However when the bright reds are used this makes them stand out more and look more dazzling and exciting. A filter is used in some parts which gives the whole shot a red effect- we would like to use this technique in our video.
A variety of different shots are used in this quick paced manner. The video really fits with the song as they are both fast paced and energetic. On the other hand when the slower parts of the song happen the video slows down and the colours become more muted and strip away all the other parts so you concentrate on just her.
The props and the costume used create this fun almost humorous mise en scene. However the video becomes very different because of all the different props and the way she works around them and makes them work together.
We really like this video because it gels together so well with the song and with the quirkyness of the singer. The tonal range of colour and shots is really effective and we would like to use the bright reds in our video to portray the prostitues lippstick and shoes etc. Altough we want to create a juxtaposition in our video between the song and the video we do want them to gel well together. We think by using the slowed down parts and mixing them with some faster paced parts it will be really successful.

Plain White T's - Hey There Delilah

We chose to analyse Hey There Delilah, by The Plain White T's, we beleived the video was quiet simple but beleivable to the song and lyrics. Due to the split screen, we felt this was the only factor that made it stand out to other music videos. A hand held camera is used alot to give it the natural feel, as though we are actually watching the woman in the shot, rather than her just being there. Arieal shots are used alot to show the location and the feeling of being alone, which is what the song tries to portray. There isn't a huge variety of shots, which makes it simple and easy to understand, which is paired well with the song and lyrics. The colour of the shots vary from black and white to muted and then high contrasted, depending on the environment.

This has showed us that the lyrics of the song has a great impact of the narrative of the video, and we want to follow in their footsteps. The variation of the colour and contrast depending on the environment, we found as a group that this had impact and more meaning to the viewer, giving a greater understanding, we also wanted to follow through with this idea. However, what we want to do different is to have more impact on the viewer, as the narrative of this song is fairly simple and boring, and nothing really happens in the shots used, other than a woman walking around New York.

Location

We have now decided on the location for the majority of our music video. We want the location to enhance what our current ideas are about the video. 

The location is hugely important and can very easily make or break a video. It is important that our location is quite neutral so that we can easily change it and adapt it to our theme and style. 

Here are some shots of our location:

The majority 

of the video will be set in this bedroom. 

We want the bed and the other surroundings to create a simple mise en scene which lets the 

filming and shots do the talking. 

The bedding is red, blacks and white, which will fit the theme quite well. We don't want the viewer to think that the prostitute is rich we want them to know that she has littlemoney and doesn't live in luxury so we may have to change some of the props in the room to achieve this. 

Album Cover Research

We have researched what type of music we want to make our music video on and now we need to research what kind of album cover has the most effect on the viewer. We want our album cover to be attention grabbing and make the viewer want to pick it up and buy it. 

After looking on the internet at various websites we found a survey that Q did on the top 100 album covers.

This list has helped us to focus in on the most memorable and popular covers. Furthermore because the list has been made by such a popular music magazine it helps us to really focus in our target audience and what they want and find the most appealing. 

In particular our favorites were :

38. The Jimi Hendrix Experience, ''Electric Ladyland''

This is a very iconic album cover, the simple image shows the emotion and passion in Hendrix. The colours are vibrant and exciting. 

There is no text used on this album cover, this makes it even more simple and allows the reader to just concentrate on the image. However because Hendrix is a more established artist he is able to do this and still enable the reader to know who the album is by. 

On our album cover we will try to use the reds to highlight certain parts of her, such as her lips and lipstick. 

The effect used on this image could also be really effective on ours by creating this sketchy look as though the image has been sketched. 

82. Bruce Springsteen, ''Born To Run"

"Born to run"s main appeal is the composition. The simple black and white colouring make the image simple but the composition of Springsteen standing to the 1st and 2nd line of the image make the cover iconic. 

The mise en scene for this image is key because it makes him seem stylish and sum up the idea of "rock-star" therefore reinforcing our stereotypes of male singers. The guitar enhances this further. 

The text is also extremely important, the larger font highlights his name. The slim font used in the text looks simple and effective. 

The colours used are all very similar and dont stand out too much. This makes its subtle and not as vibrant as the Hendric cover. They both use different techniques to create their covers. 

1. Radiohead, "Ok computer"

This was chosen as the number one album cover. Its a very unique cover because it uses multiple images and blends them into each other. The colours are all perfectly matched and create this blurred result leaving the audience wondering what they are looking at, almost creating an abstract piece of art. 

The roads blur into each other as though the traffic is moving as you are looking at it. The effect used is like a sketch. 

The text used is simple and doesn't overcome the image. The title of the album is larger than the band. The font is a simple block text in bold that doesn't make too much of a statement it just highlights to the reader who it is by and what it is called. 

90. Cure, "Disintergration"

This album cover is really effective because it provokes a feeling of sadness, confusion which is what the title is all about. The image is very complex in what it may mean and what is happening however it is simple in its composition using an overlay of two images and just the title and name of the album. 

The colours used are of a similar palette with a mix of teals, pale blues and deep oranges. When mixed with the black they create this idea of confusion and decay. 

We particularly like this cover because it fits on with out idea of loneliness and the overlay of the two images creates a really interesting outcome. 

Our Progress

We have completed our story boards, on the basis we know some shots will be difficult to produce, and some shots will be changed and worked upon. We understand that this isn't our final product, however, we believe we have created a basis which we can work upon and develop.

This also applies to the shot list, we don't know our own limits in filming, as this is a new experience for our team, so this will also be edited and changed as we go through filming, this is completely understood by the group. 

We still need to complete textual analysis parts for our research, also the podcasts of people's opinions of different music videos that we feel have relevance and similarity to what we want. The questionnaire is still waiting to be sent out to participants who are willing to help us in our research. These tasks are important to us and need to be done as soon as possible.

Jose Gonzalez

Now that we have chosen what song will beusing in our video we think it would be useful to do some background research on Gonzalez. We want to find out what his previous videos have been like and what his previous cd covers and adverts have looked like.
We dont want to completly move away from what the artist is all about. His music is very calm and tranquil and his cd covers are simple and abstract.

The song heartbeats has become quite a popular song and is quite well known. The song featured on an advert for sony bravia TV. This launched the song into a more wider market, yet because the video was so simple but yet so original it made sure that Gonzalez didnt loose his signature original style. The video features a street which then has lots of coloured balls bouncing down the road. It has been slowed down so that the video still remains calm and fits together perfectly with the song.

Storyboards

We have started to make our storyboards and plan what we want to happen in our music video.
We believe the song is about the life of a prostitute, and her struggle to find happiness, this is taken from the original, of a woman singing rather than a man. In our video we plan to show the life of this prostitute, and the daily routine she goes through.

We want to show this through close ups and extreme close ups. We will also be using a jerky hand held camera which will reflect how uneven their relationship is and how the feelings he feels may not be reciprocated.
We also want to change the colors so that some shots are black and white, with hints of red, such as the red lipstick she will be wearing, we want to use this as our main focus point. We have used the Hey there Delilah video as an inspiration for this. We also quite like how the lights in the video from the city are blurred and make it feel quite soft, it makes the audience feel quite calm.

Overall we want to make the video quite calm and relaxing because that is what the song is all about. But yet we still want to create this juxta position. This can be done through the story of the video and what it is telling the viewer.

The video will begin with a flashback of her in a club,surrounded by people, the thing that will make the audience realize that she is the protagonist, is her red lipstick,on a black and white color scheme. The rest of the video will follow her daily routine, showing how she is alone,and how her life isn't good enough for her. Throughout the video there will be numerous flashbacks, blurring an overall narrative and making it more believable. 

When making a storyboard we are taking into account the length of the song and when the lyrics start and finish. We want the song to be in perfect sync with the video, so we will use slow paced shots to emphasize this. We will also need to think about who we cast as the characters in the video. We have also thought about the mise en scene of the video and what the characters will be wearing. The girl will be wearing knee high boots, a short skirt and red lipstick so that it is really obvious who she is. 

Questionnaire

Our questionnaire in which we will send out to a different range of ages, we will also pair this with three seperate interviews in which we will film, to help us with our research.

The completed questionnaire looks like this:

Questionnaire

We have decided to concentrate our questionnaires on what the audience wants from a music video rather than the music genre. We want our questionnaire be as detailed as possible and to give us the answers we need. We have already chosen our song, so we need to base our questionnaire around this and how we can represent this song in the best possible way. We have chosen a Jose Gonzalez song, the style of the music is described in his biography as "low-voiced, serious and introverted music has almost been hugged to death by everything from the indie crowd to your grandmother"

Plan Of Action

We have had a group discussion and have come to the conclusion that a plan of action is needed, so that we have a clear view of where to go after finishing certain tasks.

In the first stages of our plan we are going to research by doing textual analysis and interviews supported by questionnaires. This will help us come to a final decision on our main project, the music video. Our research will include looking at different music videos that have an impact on the viewer, and finding a song that can suit our style and will be able to target our chosen audience.

The target audience, based on songs we have already cancelled down and chosen, is the male and female audience, so that it applies to everyone, with a wide age group from young to old, how ever because it will be impossible to appeal to everyone's needs through one music video, the target audience will be someone interested in the music industry and always looking for something different.

As a group we decided what we want from the music video and the creation of it. We want a simple song that has the ability to have a juxtaposition created via the video, so that a powerful and clear message is given to the audience. A story board will be devised after our research and finalisation of the chosen song. The story board will depend on the narrative of the song, and the length of the song.

Deciding Our Chosen Project

9th June 09

After looking at the breif that we have been given, we have decided to create a music promotion video, accompanied by a CD cover and magazine advertisement. We decided that this was best suited to our creative thinking because one of our main interests is in the music industry.