Shot List

Throughout our music video, we decided to use certain shots that would go well with out song so here is a list of shots that me and my partner have iucluded into our music video :

Close-up Shot
Close-up Medium Shot
Medium Shot
Medium Long Shot
High Angle Shot
Low Angle Shot
Over the shoulder Shot
180 Degrees Shot
2 Shot

We tried to do these shots to the best of our ability but sometimes they didnt all fully work.

Draft Storyboard

Here are the first 2 slides of my draft storyboard. In slide number one, it will show you what me and my partner intend to do for our first shot, which is a close up of our artists foot, tapping in time with the music, this shot will be a close up and will slowly zoom in or out, its not been finalised, it will aslo go on for a few seconds and may be shot back to, time and time again.

The second slide here, shows our artist sitting on a bale of hay, this was an idea we had always had and stuck to it. He will play his guitar and lip sync to the music and will change intime with the music, if other band members are in this shot, they will not be sitting on the hay with tom, they will stand.


In this scene, shot 3, the other 2 artists (if they decide to be in the video) will emerge from behind the hay bale Tom was sitting on and they will play the music on there guitars, they however will not be lip synicing to the music, on Tom will be doing this.

In shot 4, the girl is introduced, she is holding a camera and she is weaving in and out the band members with a camera, from time to time the footage would change to her camera and not hers so we get her point of view as well as ours. She will do a 360 shot of the band so we can see them and the surroundings.



The 5th shot is of the girl alone in the field with the camera, the music is still playing, but you cannot see the band playing the music. She will hold the camera out and aim it towards herself, she will be laughing at this moment in time, the shot itself will last for a good 5 or 6 seconds before changing back to a previous shot or the next one.


This shot goes back to Tom being on the hay bale with the other guys round him, the song will be about 3 quaters the way in now. The band will of moved around a little bit, minus Tom who is still sitting on the bale and lip syncing. We will use high and low angle shots here to show the band, with a few over the shoulder shots too.

Here is the 7th shot. In this shot, we will be doing close ups of each member playing there instruments, and in Toms case, singing as well. This is were we will use fast cut montage, with split second shots on different members at different angles, that also goes with the music beat.
On the final shot it will be quick changes from the girl with the camera to our camera, using both angles then we would finalise our video. To the end of the song, our last shot would a zoom in of his foot still tapping to the beat until it stops and fades out and the song finishes.

Shooting Schedule

Here is my shooting schedule of all the times me and my partner went out to shoot our music video. On this schedule is the dates we filmed, equipment taken, people involved and the problems that we encountered when we were shooting.

Final Storyboard

Here is the final version of my storyboard, there had to be changes to the original due to the change in location.

Change of Location

Unfortunately due to bad weather, me and my partner had to change location, luckily enough one of the artist's owns a small barn with hay bundles stacked up in. We cannot use a large open space, due to the bad weather, one thing we did suggest is doing it in the bad weather, as a bit of irony to the music, but our artists refused due to there guitars may get damaged. So we have settled on using the barn as our location, one of the issues that we run into in using the barn is the fact the lighting may not be great, but this may be solved by the use of bring and using our own lights. Here are some photos of our new location.

Location

On this post here i will be uploading pictures of my current location and talking about why i will be using this as a location.

The type of location that me and my partner have chosen is an quite open setting of a feild, we would prefer if it was sunny weather just before dusk, but that might have to be changed due to the change in weather. We were looking for a feild that had bundles of hay in it, were our artist could sit on and play his guitar as he sings. The reason we wanted a nice open field, with the use of the bundles of hay, is because after listening to the song we have choosen, we feel that this particular setting would suit our music video perfectly.

Artists Album Covers

When it came to looking up album covers, me and my partner searched for artists that had a similar sound to our own artist and then used there album artwork to look at and use ideas from.

John Mayer

Lyrics

Here are the lyrics of my choosen song by my artist, and on this post i will be analysing the lyrics to the song called 'Room To Breathe'.

Intertextuality is when music videos take on other means of media in there music video, and here is a few of examples of this happening

Californiacation

In the music video 'Californiacation' by 'The Red Hot Chilli Peppers' they did there music video in the theme of a video game but also with them in it normally as a standard performance based music video. The video characters in the music video are supposed to look like the actual band members and they are acting like there in a video game by being on ski's and skateboards and picking up lives.

Creating a Niche

Creating a 'niche' is something that an artist needs to consider when they start getting popular. A niche is something that makes the artist stand out among others, there individuality or identity if you will, just anything that makes them be remembered, because the music industry is a very popular business and if you dont stand out then its very hard to hit the big times. An example of an artist that has a distinctive look is Marilyn Manson. There are no other artists that look like Marilyn Manson and if any do come close, they would be classed as looking like Marilyn Manson, with his long dark hair, pale face paint and skinny tattooed bodied, it comes across a gothic look. But not only does Marylin Manson have a distinctive look, his music is very unique and although he cant change the genre of music that he produces like Rihanna can, he is very skilled at the type of music he produces. Although Marylin Manson may not appeal to all auidence's, his fans that are loyal to him, may still listen to him if he does decide to change his music style.

My Artist

The artist that i have chosen for my project is a good friend of ours, Thomas Boardman. He will be playing accoustic guitar and singing for us, as well as being in our performance based music video. The song we have chosen is called 'Room to Breathe' and was written by Thomas himself, but in this particular song there is the need for an extra guitar, which has been played by another friend of ours Jamie Thomas who has been known to play with Thomas from time to time. Jamie will also be in the music video along with Thomas playing backup guitar. The type of music that tom plays has a very relaxed feeling to it, mainly due to his use of accoustic guitar and his style of voice, which is similar to the likes of artist John Mayer. When we asked our artist, we asked him in a face-to-face meeting, which he happily agreed to, and also offered the help of 2 other gutiarist who could help in th eplaying of the music or the music video itself.

The Online Revolution

Music is promoted in all different kinds of ways, using the radio, television, billboards, but the biggest and most successful way of promoting music is using the Internet. A good reason for using the Internet to promote your music is the fact that its free. It costs you nothing to set up a blog and upload your music and send it round to friends, which can sometimes be the easiest way. A great example of this is the arctic monkeys, they started off by handing out CD's for free at there gigs, and then one day a fan of there uploaded all there music onto Myspace and it went like wildfire, when in an interview the members of the band were asked who set up the Myspace account but they had no idea that they even had one! after the Arctic Monkeys had got around they decided to settle for the independent record label know as Domino and have had the fastest selling record in the UK with there album 'Whatever People Say I Am, That's What Im Not'. Another brilliant example of using the Internet to promote there music is Nizlopi. Nizlopi is a band made up Luke Concannon and John Parker, they came up with the 'JCB' song and it became number one just before christmas in 2005. The song was written and played by the 2 guys and then with the help of a small company 'MonkeyHub' the produced a video, with small animated drawings that went hand-in-hand with the lyrics and after sending the song round to a few of there friends, it got sent round more and more and it became a massive hit within the UK, and this cost them nothing, there a perfect example of what the Internet can do for an upcoming artist.

Branding

When it comes to branding, some artists have alot more success with promoting themselves by selling t shirts, mug, posters, lighters etc. A band i have used before, that have been very good at this are Blink 182. They have sold t shirts, badges, wristbands, hoodies and even toys. These types of items are now mainly bought off the internet, all of them can be paid for off a website and sent to you, but you can also buy them at gigs that the band are playing at. The merchandise is brought out as a means for the artist to earn more of a profit, but not all artists can do it, Blink 182 were a good examply because they had such a distinctive logo that went on everything, and its a sign that is known worldwide by most people of the younge generation, they have also been extremely successful in this aspect of the promoting themselves.

Target Audience

Here i will be showing you the target audience of 3 artists and how successful they were in achieving there target audience.

Blink 182

blink 182 are one of the worlds most successful pop punk bands. They have catchy songs and lyrics that appeal to a younger audience. There target audience was of course the younger generation and they fitted them perfectly. By the time of the 5Th album 'Enema of the State' was directed mainly at there target audience, were as the first 3 albums were done because it was there own music and they independent. After the 4Th album were they signed on to a label and they were given a target audience, this is when they started directing there music, hence why there 5Th album was so successful.


Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse is a very recent and extremely publicised artist. The reason due to her success is due to her new different sound that she has managed to introduce to the world. Her target audience varies, mainly adults prefer her sound but some of the younger generation do enjoy listening to her music. The way she has reached out to her younger generation is by having this different type of music, unfortunately she has only produced 2 albums, one in 2003 and the second in 2006.

Rihanna

Rhianna has became a massive name over the past few years in the music industry. She has produced countless amounts of number 1 records and sold millions of singles. The reason behind Rihanna's success is because her music is versatile and can be enjoyed by many different types of audience's. Her stereotypical audience is teenagers but do to her variety of songs and music style she has all captured the ears of older listeners.

Close up of the artists and Star image motifs

In music videos artist will either use themselves in there videos, with a close up of a single member or the hole band or just the artist and they will look straight at the camera. A great example of this is Chris Martin from 'Coldplay' he tends to use himself in all his videos and occasionally the band members. One of his memorbale videos is 'The Scientist', in this video he is filmed backwards, but singing the words foward, to do this he had to write and learn his song backwards which was a very daunting task, but was pulled off and he created a one off fantastic video.

One of his videos that is use's a motif with the lyrics is 'Fix You' were there is a constant reference to light and then light is shown throughout the video until he comes onto stage were there is an explosion of light.

Another artist we looked at was 'Eminem' and how contriversal his music videos are to other artists and the american goverment. He shows himself in all his videos and his lyrics always mention a certain 'Dr Drey' and references to his bad childhood with his mother.

An artist that use's a star motif, is the gorillaz for instance. In all there videos they show themselves as cartoon characters, and never as there actuall selves and during live performances, they would have the animated characters on in the background behind them.

Notions of looking

One of Goodwins theories of music videos was the notion of looking, this includes :

Screens with screens

Telescopes

Eyes

Looking glass

Indirect/direct address

Voyeurism (looking at someone for pleasure, for example the 'Moulin Rouge' video)


Pink - 'Who Knew'

Throughout this video there are notions of looking shown by the artist and the characters in the video. Pink, looks directly at the camera for small periods of time and then looks away at times. Also, as the video progress's you notice that's the characters are staring into each others eyes at certain times in the music video.






Miley Cyrus - 'Can't Be Tamed'

Miley Cyrus in this video is in a cage and there are people surrounding the cage. In normal circumstances people tent to want to see what is in a cage, and her being in it links to the notion of looking. She also looked directly at the camera at all times and it was always focused upon her. Another link to the notion of looking within her video is were peoples faces come out of the dark and it focus's on there eyes.

Goodwins 7 Theories about music videos.

Goodwin has 7 theories when it comes to watching music videos that have been applied to all artists videos and here they are:

Genre characteristics
What is the relationship between lyrics and visuals?
What is the relationship between music and visuals?
Are there close-ups of the artist and star image motifs?
Is there any reference to the notion of looking?
Are there any intertextual references?
It is based mainly on
- performance
- narrative (lyrics)
- a concept or idea

Introduction

This is my media blog were i will be posting all of my coursework, showing the progress and development of my work as the year goes on.

Task
A Promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promotion video and 2 ancillary tasks.