Shot List

 

This is a shot list showing details on what each shot will show. It also shows the lyrics that will be heard at this point so we know the duration of the shot and when it will be cut.

Filming Schedule

This is an early draft of a filming schedule for our production. We are very likely to change it, and we are not yet sure of the dates we are going to film, but this is still helpful for us because it shows what shots we must film. It also gives us a rough order that we could approach our filming days with.

 

Vox Pop Analysis

Vox Pop is short for 'Vox Populi', which is Latin for 'Voice of the people'. It is an interviewing technique used in broadcasting to show the views of the general public. It is a helpful research tool as it means you can get unprepared opinions of a range of people who differ in age, gender, class, occupation etc. We created one by questioning various students at our school to find out a number of views regarding music and promotional videos.
 
What is your favourite music video and why?

- One Direction: 'You and I' - Because of the transitions between the different band members and how the shots are organised

 

- Oasis: 'Wonderwall' - Because it does not stick to any typical conventions. The fact that it is in black and white means that it does not seem to age, so you can watch it again and again

 

- Sia: 'Chandelier' - Because of the dancing in the video

 

- Justin Timberlake: 'Mirrors' - Because of the symbolism of the mirrors

 

- 1975: 'Chocolate' - Because of the black and white filter used

Looking at these responses shows us a few different elements that people find effective in music promos. Interestingly, it was mentioned twice that a black and white filter makes some videos more watchable, one person saying that it makes it remain a good video for longer because you cannot tell as easily when the video was made. This idea encourages us to use filters, however not for the whole video. It could work well to use it only for certain parts- for example the slower bridge section- as it could emphasise more important lyrics of the song. If there is a black and white filter it may mean that for a moment, viewers would not be as focused on the events of the video but concentrate on the message of the lyrics. Someone also believed that the editing was important, which can lead us to think a lot about how well our transitions and organisation go with the song and if it runs smoothly. Symbolism was also mentioned, which assures us that our idea of the paint/ink symbolism will be quite dramatic and viewers will like it. Another person thought it was good to not make a typical video, which is good because we are aiming to make a unique and original video, so we know that this would be appealing to people. Another person mentioned dancing as a good thing to include, however we feel that the tone and pace of our chosen track would not suit a dance-based video.      

 
What is your favourite music genre?

- Rock/pop
 
- Pop/Indie
 
- Pop and Indie

The results of this question were useful because it told us that the genre of our track (Indie pop) is quite popular, especially among teenagers because this was the age range of people we interviewed at school. It is helpful because we know that our genre is appealing for this age range and we can tailor our video so it is appealing for them.


How/when did you last watch a music video/what music video?

- Last night on an iPhone

- On an iPad on YouTube - 'I see the light'

-  A David Guetta video

- Last night on YouTube

The responses to this question really show how popular and easily accessible music videos are. The fact that we interviewed a number of teenagers, and they had all seen a music video in only a day or two in advance of us interviewing them, shows that they are watched a great deal among young people. This reinforces the idea that we should make the video appealing to them and use conventions that they would enjoy.
 
What conventions do you like to see?

- The band performing because it gives you an insight into what they are like

- Seeing the band's personality. A combination of performance and narrative.

- Interesting camerawork, especially close-ups of the artist

- Memorability and weirdness, no performance

- An interesting element, like animation, to make it memorable

- Performance and storytelling

There were very contrasting responses to this question. It was said a few times that people enjoyed actually seeing the band or artist in the video, however it was also repeated that people like seeing more unique elements, making it memorable. Someone actually stated that they did not like seeing performance of the artist and would rather see something more strange. It will be a challenge for us to meet both of these ideas, however we could try to please both opinions effectively- we can include the convention of performance but make it more strange and memorable than normal by dressing the artist differently for example, or putting them in an odd location. Story and narrative were also mentioned, which means that we should try and show some of the story of the song. It would not have to be a continuing narrative, but it definitely would show parts of the song literally or even just give an overall atmosphere of what the song means, for example hinting at the singer's heartbreak. Animation was also mentioned, and we have actually considered using stop motion so it shows that it could help make the video memorable. 

 

Cutting to the beat

 

We printed off the lyrics to 'Ink Settles In' and created a key so that we could clearly see where in the song we would cut to different shots. We worked out all of the various things we wanted to show and where, then created this system to show it clearly. 

 

Budget List

 

This budget plan shows the important props and costumes we must purchase for our production. It shows the cost and where we can get it from. This is important for us because we do not want to over spend, but we want good quality products. This lets us know how much we are spending and how much money we all need to put in.

 

 

Magazine Adverts

Production Roles

Created with Padlet

Genre

Definition of Genre:

Genre is a style or classification of something, usually a form of art for example: films, music, books, television etc.

Brief History of Indie Pop

- The roots of Indie Pop go back to the post-punk hysteria in the late 1970s.

- In this time  many magazines (or 'fanzines') were being released . One of which was called 'Record Business' and started an article showing weekly indie singles and albums. The introduction of these charts got a lot of people interested in independent music.

- In 1986, NME Magazine released a cassette called C86 which featured new independent British bands. This is said to be the birth of Indie Pop in the UK.  

- Pop historian Jon Savage said the origins of indie pop go back to the Velvet Underground's third album.

- Power pop, punk and post-punk were all influences for the genre

- Indie Pop is much more melodic than Indie Rock
 

Typical themes/lyrical content

Indie pop is such a vast genre that it cannot easily be pin-pointed to one typical theme. Instead there are a number of common ideas. As a branch off pop music, it does share some themes with it. For example relationships will always be major inspiration for songwriters of the genre. This can be interpreted negatively or positively. Our chosen song, Kate Nash's 'Foundations' and Lana Del Rey's 'Born To Die' are examples of the theme conveyed in a negative way (linked to heartbreak and relationships ending). Quite a few Pulp songs, The Moldy Peaches 'Anyone Else But You' and   Cat Power's version of 'Sea of Love' are all examples of a more positive portrayal of the theme. Even though this is a popular theme, there are wide range of styles to the genre that lots of themes can be involved in it. Some of the songs by Bjork (Army of Me, Hunter) seem to have empowering lyrics about the strength of the performer herself, while Belle and Sebastian's lyrics seem to be of quite a depressing nature sometimes. Another Indie group are Peter, Bjorn and John whose most well-known song is 'Young Folks' which is a much more light-hearted song, with an upbeat tempo and cheerful lyrics.

Musical style/characteristics

It has been said that the word 'Indie' has become a way of describing music with the following conventions: 'chiming' guitars, 60s pop inspiration, and power pop song structures. Power pop is a definite influence in not only the structure of indie pop music but the catchy melodies. Indie Pop combines sounds of various different groups and sub-genres, for example The Jesus and Mary Chain used the 'melancholy noise' of Velvet Underground and the pop melodies of the Beach Boys.    

Ideologies

Because Indie Pop came about just after the punk phase, it shares its ideologies with the genre. They both value the idea of creating all of the music yourself, and trying to avoid conforming and becoming manufactured. It aims to be unique, hence the 'independent' title and not make music in order to please others.  

Representation

The style of Indie artists is not as clean-cut or purposely aesthetically pleasing as pop artists. Because they have this ideology of being independent and being themselves they try to avoid conforming to mainstream styles. While pop artists are likely to have a team of stylists, indie artists are more likely to make these decisions themselves and have more control of how they want to be represented. Female indie pop artists sometimes dress in a tomboyish style, as if they don't want to adhere to the extreme feminine style and are willing to prove this by being the opposite of what is expected.   
 

 

Target Audience

Because of the unique and original nature to indie music it tends to appeal to a younger age range. The fact that it is less mainstream, and seeks to subvert the typical expectations of popular music young people (teenagers to those in their twenties) can identify with it. They can relate to the rebellious attitude because they do not want to fall into an easily defriend category.

Example

Gotye is a solo artist and his genre is described as Indie Pop, meaning that it falls into the same category as ‘Ink Settles In’ by Andrea Storm Kaden, our chosen song. Looking at the video shows what is expected for music promos of this genre and I can look back at it for inspiration, because it is very successful and we are aiming for something of this style.

This is the first shot from the music video. It is a close panning shot of someone’s body – which we soon realise, is Gotye himself. It catches the viewer’s attention because it is already quite unusual. The viewer questions why we are seeing a seemingly naked body. Also the images are very simple and plain colours so we can focus purely on the subject which is the artist’s body. It sets the theme for the video as being set all in one room with a very simplistic nature. Because the performer has no clothes on, it gives an organic nature to the song and the video, making a point that this is an indie artist that has not been manufactured. 

After the camera has panned from Gotye’s feet to his head, we finally see his face. This is when it becomes clear that he is the performer because we see him miming the lyrics to the song. It is at this point that we learn that the narrative and the performance of this video are combined. This suits the genre because it has the feeling of the artists not being manufactured at all as they play their own instruments and write their songs, therefore they would want to be seen as the main part of the video with the narrative or any events being focused on them. It is also notable that the frame is composed so that Gotye’s face is central; again reinforcing that he is a non-manufactured artist, he is a solo indie artist with meaningful music. The basicness of the shots highlight this as well, and  make the viewer pay more attention to the lyrics and the meaning of the song. Indie pop tends to have more meaning in the lyrics and structure itself, as opposed to typical pop music which conforms to a distinctive tone. They tend to have the same message and sound while Indie pop has a little more meaning and emotion, so it follows that the videos tend to be deeper and less conventional.

This is when we see a new part of the narrative beginning. It uses stop motion to show a line travelling across a wall while other lines soon join and create a pattern. Eventually paint comes on the wall too and fills in the shapes that have been formed with the lines. When watching the video, you start to wonder what this is going to lead to, what it could cause and how it can be combined with the performance. It shows the disjunctive style of the video because viewers are likely to be trying to link the stop motion events to the meaning of the song, but finding they don’t seem to relate.

 

This is the point when the performance and narrative come together. We see what the stop motion was leading to, and yet there still seems to be no relevance to the song. It is a popular convention for indie music to be quite bizarre, because they are then more memorable. Despite the video not seeming to have a clear connection with the song, it can be said that it fits with the atmosphere; the paint and lines build up in time with the rhythm, the camera moves in time with the music, the artist is still and the miming is emphasised by the close-up so that we listen to the words. 

 

The camera pans out very slowly so that we see the second artist: Kimbra. Again, the camera moves in time with the music, being steady as it moves during the instrumental. Up until now, Gotye’s face has been central and the focus point of most shots. He was the most important part of the video but now Kimbra has joined and they both have half of the screen. Because there are now two artists, they both have equal share of the frame. The shots here last for a long time- the editing is very much of a slow-pace so the camera adheres to this. The artists stay within the lines drawn on the wall which lead onto their bodies. However, as the song becomes more fierce and loud, the female breaks out of the lines and moves towards the male. The editing also becomes choppier with straight cuts to shots of varying lengths. These changes are used to reflect the pick up in tempo and the more aggressive dynamics of the song.  

One of the last things we see is the paint gradually disappearing from Kimbra’s back. An editing technique has been used here to split the screen so Gotye remains miming in normal time while stop motion is used on Kimbra for the paint to disappear. This enhances the strange atmosphere seen throughout in the video, and again follows the idea of the style of the promo matching the sound of the song. The paint disappears gradually but jerkily which matches the detached jumpy sounds of the music. Indie pop videos do not necessarily have to show the song in a literal way, but the overall tone of the promo should enhance the music by emphasising the meaning of it.    

Target audience, USP and Concept

The Concept

 

The concept for our music video is based around the song lyric 'As the ink settles in'. We are planning to uses a lot of paint (as this is similar to ink) though out the video to represent this.  We believe that song is about someone breaking the artist heart and we want to get this message across. But instead of doing a typical narrative story of girl and boy get together and then break up, we are going to create something original and unique by showing a number of different montage shots that fuse the paint and the break up together.  We are going to do this by dripping paint on to various love items (for example the rose) to represent the gradual break down of romance. 

Another lyric line we are going to uses in our video is 'Burn forever, like gasoline and grass'. For this we want to set fire to some love items, as it represents the angry and hurt that the artist is going though. We also really want to push our media skills to the limit so using the lyric ' piercing in my spine' we are going to create a stop motion part with where the dress of our performer starts to rip open and reveal paint dripping down.

As for the performance we are going to have our actress mime the song in a date like setting (most likely to be a dinner date). Then as the song goes on she get  more angry, so we are going to show this by having our actress start knocking smashing the set while having paint thrown at- the ink is settling in!

 

 

Unique Selling point

 

The unique selling point of our music video is that is not a stereotypical pop music video. It does not have a typical narrative of a boy meets girl and they break up, which most of break up songs consist of. Instead we are combining a popular video with an abstracted video. In which we be showing our audience different symbolism that represent the song. By doing this it makes the audience think about our music video in more detail. This hopefully will make our video standout as the audience are more likely to remember something that makes them think a little bit more.

Also the other unique selling point about our music video is that the artist loses control towards the end of the video. This usually isn’t done in a popular video, especially with female artist as they are meant to be seen as ‘perfect’ and not a normal person. By having our artist losing control towards the end of the video and looking unattractive makes use break stereotypes and shows our audience that even a music artist aren’t perfect.

 

Target Audience

 

After looking into the meaning of the song by analysing the lyrics and listening to it repeatedly, we feel we have a clear idea of its meaning. We realise that the theme of the song is the heartbreak of a young woman (the woman being the singer of the song). It has a lot of emotion in it that builds throughout the song, as the singing becomes much more passionate and dynamic as it reaches the last three choruses. The fact that the song is sung by a younger woman means that a teenage girl audience would naturally sympathise with her message. People can relate to a performer when they have age and gender in common with them. In addition, the song will relate to those that have experienced a problem like this. There is likely to be a huge number of teenage girls that have experienced heartbreak, and it is important that we cater to them by making a video that portrays the emotion realistically but creatively. Furthermore, the teenage girl target market is a large consumer of pop music. This reinforces the idea that we should aim the video for them because they would know what genre appeals to them, and they would look for more of this category. If we use some conventions of an indie pop video then they will be able to identify it as that genre, but if we subvert other conventions then it will stay interesting and original to them.        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Focus Group Video: Part Two

This is the second part for our footage of the focus group we conducted. The focus group consisted of ten people and we asked six questions regarding our promo concept and had a discussion about it.

Focus Group Video: Part One

This is the first part for our footage of the focus group we conducted. The focus group consisted of ten people and we asked six questions regarding our promo concept and had a discussion about it.

Focus Group Analysis

Response to Question 1: What genre would you say the song is?

After hearing the first twenty seconds of our selected song, 9 out of 10 of our focus group answered from the selection we gave them that they thought it was ‘Acoustic Pop’ while the other participant selected ‘Grunge’. Some people specifically wrote how they could tell it was of this genre, noting that there were few instruments and the acoustic guitar being a main element of the song. The fact that the responses show that the genre is quite easy to identity could imply that we have more reason to include basic conventions of music videos of this genre. Because it evidently has a typical sound for this genre, it would follow that we use conventions that are identifiable with it, for example much performance of the artist and a disjunctive style to the video. Then again, our research shows us that viewers would not want our video to become predictable or stereotypical. Therefore there is room for us to subvert some conventions and be creative with the ideas. The feedback shows us that people are very familiar  with this genre, thus they are likely to have seen many conventional videos and it encourages us further to be atypical and use elements that perhaps would not be expected of the genre, yet still work well with the song.

 

Response to Question 2: Do you like the initial concept?

Once we had pitched the initial idea to the focus group, we asked them to put their thumbs up or down depending on whether they liked it or not. This would give a good fast reaction as they had to give a response out of two options. Fortunately the whole group put their thumbs up to show that they thought it would be a good idea. Even though this was a group of just ten people, it is still useful to have this positive feedback. What was even more helpful was the feedback people gave explaining why they liked the idea. We went round the group and each participant put forward something that they thought was effective.

 

Response to Question 3: Why/why not?    

One of the responses that came up a few times to why the focus group enjoyed our concept was that it was relatable. The participants mostly agreed that it was of importance that a viewer of a video can relate to the messages it gives. People pointed out that the heartbreak theme of the song is relatable to most people, and our concept will convey this clearly. In addition to this, some said that it is relatable but is still abstract and artistic. It is not purely realistic so it should still be interesting to watch. A couple of people used the word ‘unique’, ‘new’ and ‘interesting’, yet elaborated by saying that it would still work with the song. It will not be so unique that it is irrelevant or not suitable for the song. This feedback has shown us that it is important to ensure that the more abstract element of our video- the paint throwing and symbolic part- is produced in a professional way to enhance the uniqueness, while still maintaining the clear theme of the song.        

 

Response to Question 4: Do you think that this is an original idea?

On a scale of 1 to 5 with five being most original and one being not at all, these were the results we received:

5, 5, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 4, 3

 

As mentioned in the analysis of the feedback for the first question, this shows that it would work for us to use a less conventional idea for our video. The average response from the focus group describes our concept as original, which means it is certainly not a typical promo idea. In addition they agreed that they liked the idea, consequently having a less conventional video for this song and genre should be successful. It is important to us that our idea is original because it will then be memorable, and this is one of the primary intentions of a music video. It makes people watch it repetitively and listen to the song more and more. The fact that it is not unoriginal means it could be a long-lasting video.

 

Response to Question 5: What target audience would this appeal to?

This was a written response, so we received a range of detail in the responses:

 

-          16/17 year olds as it is relatable for them

-          Teen girls

-          Teen females, as relationships are becoming an important part of life for them and this song is linked to this theme

-          It has a universal appeal, but more specifically to females ranging from teens to twenties

-          19-25 year olds

-          16-25 year olds

-          Teens or people who have recently experienced a breakup

-          Teens/young adults

-          Teens/young adults

-          Teens/young adults

 

It is interesting to note of the different details people gave; many of the responses involved age and gender. One answer specifically mentioned people that had been in a breakup as they would find this relatable. On the whole it seems that the focus group felt that the song would appeal to young women. This seems to be because the lyrical content is relatable and because it is sung by a woman. Because the artist is a female it is instantly easier for girls to empathise with the emotion conveyed in her song. Knowing this information means that we can target our video specifically towards an audience. We can make decisions that would enhance the appeal to the target market and have a clear goal for the overall result of the production.

 

Response to Question 6: Is there any part of the concept that you would change?

Someone asked if we will use slow-motion at any part of the video. We responded to this by saying that we are definitely planning to use different effects, especially for the paint throwing part of the video when this would look most effective. The fact that this question was asked would suggest that this is a convention that would be expected. The participant obviously believed that this would work well and this has made us certain that we should try various editing effects. Another person asked what colour of paint we planned to use. We decided to hold a vote for different ideas. Either we would use a range of bright colours from the start to the end, or we would begin with bright colours and end with darker red and black as the performer becomes angrier. Everyone voted for the latter because of the symbolism and tone this would give of the emotion becoming bitterer. The last thing we discussed as a group was what sort of props should be used. Many of the partakers put in ideas such as: roses, boxes of chocolates, a veil, teddy bears, picture frames, hearts and jewellery. This was helpful as it gave us more of an idea of props to use to project the theme of love and heartbreak.    

Focus Group Plan

The following are the slides from a PowerPoint we used to ask questions to a focus group regarding our song and the initial concept for the video. The slides show the questions and how what form they should be answered in.