planning before filming

Before starting filming, as a group we had a lot of decisions to make such as different settings to fit the words or theme of the song such as- the settings, props, actors and suitable costumes.

The song we chose has a very personal meaning so we decided to change what we thought the meaning was about, making it be about a teenager losing his girlfriend and everywhere he looks she is there, we will show this using flashbacks that will be in black and white.
Main settings- as the main character in the video is a teenage boy we will use different settings that are typical to his age such as playing a guitar in his bedroom thinking about his girlfriend. Another setting will be at the park where he will be  pushing a swing as if his girlfriend is there but after a few seconds she disappears off the swing as if she was never even there.

jessica and emily.

album research

The James Morrison album is quite simple but effective. the picture of him works well with the title of the album undiscovered. The font adds to the album being not simple but not too much. It looks quite depressing which could link to the music on the album.
i think the picture works well as you know straight away who you are listening to and its not complicated to understand like some albums are. the font also works well with the colours linking to the background.

Paolo Nutini's album is very eyecatching with the bright colours and the different pictures of the same person. Compared to other acoustic albums it stands out and is bright where as acoustic ones tend to be quite dull and not use the colours this has. the font could be remembered and linked to him so this worked well using it.
i think that it works well by breaking the usual conventions of acoustic albums and challenging it. the bright colours may it catch the eye so people could choose this instead of quite a dull one.

James Blunt's album also challenges the acoustic album conventions. it still uses a faceshot like other ones do but it colourful and different. the different pictures leading back to him make it different but stand out at the same time. the font works well and the eye is easily drawn to the simple and not too bright title.
i think the different colours work well together, and it isn't too complicated but at the same time is eyecatching and quite attractive.

Jason Mraz's album is quite different to the other ones looked at. it involves him in a location rather than the other ones that use a single faceshot. the font is also eyecatching as it is completely different to other simple fonts used. it is quite unique and the spaceship with the lightning bolt could be very easily recognisable to him. the scene links to the picture as it is called ' Geek in the pink' and the location is a school.
i think this really challenges the conventions of the acoustic genre but does it well and gets away with it.






after looking at several albums it looks like the faceshot is quite popular within the genre whilst using bright colours and fancy fonts. It is the same but different. it needs to be different to catch people's eye but at the same time link to the genre to be easily noticed.





vicky wright

Album Research

The Newton Faulkner album cover is very manipulated; the characters have been added individually onto the robotic hand, this links in with the title of the album. The colour of the album is veryb colourful suggesting that the music is upbeat and happy.

I like the fact that the font is very different and quirky; also there is a border around the title of the artist and album. The font is in a white text, which makes the writing stand out by using a dark blue background looking like clouds.

The album cover for Michelle Branch links very much to the actual title of the album. The image is of the artist faded with a background, of a place that looks like Texas. This links together as the title is “everything comes and goes” The text is noticeable with the bold text.

This album cover is very different compared to other acoustic covers. This is because it uses very dark colours that are not usually used within female artists colours. The photograph of the artist is highly edited because the face is in black and white her outfit is in colour. The colour of the background is white which helps the title of the artist and album name stand out very much so.

Emily Haworth

Locations

The location that we are going to film the scenes of the boy waiting for his girlfriend will take place at the train-station. We decided to pick this location because we all have easy access to it and we can take shots of trains arriving with people getting off it within the music video to show that she is standing him up.

We will also use the location of Corporation Park to show flash backs of the boy with his girlfriend to show how things used to be when they were together. Also, we will use the boys bedroom/doorways in order to show performance that will be shown as snippets throughout the music video.

Emily, Kate, Jess and Vicky

planning

There are two characters in our music video - a boyfriend and girlfriend.

There are several flashbacks within the video of the boy and his girlfriend in the park during the happy times.

The video also shows the boy heartbroken playing his guitar in doorways. Part of the performance would also be him performing in his bedroom which is when he is actually performing and singing the song.

Costumes –

Boy

Typical teenage clothing but they will have to be changed three times to fit with the different flashbacks and times within the video to add consistency. The clothes may be a bit darker after he has split up with his girlfriend to show that is down and depressed. The colours of the clothes could fit in with what mood the boy is in. so when he is in the park during the happy times he might wear quite bright colour. When he is at the train station he could dress quite smart to show that the meeting meant a lot to him.

Girl –

Again the girl in the flashback would wear typical teenage girl clothes. She would only need one outfit as she is only in one part of the video.

Prop list

We would need a guitar for when the boy is playing in the doorway. Also a box of chocolates for him while he is waiting at the train station which he will later throw away when he realizes she isn’t actually coming. The part where he is performing in his bedroom, the room would look like a typical teenage boys, most probably messy and quite bland.

Equipment

To be able to film, we will need one video camera and tripod. also several tapes to record our footage on. We will then require the use of iMac computers and the software Final Cut to edit our footage. To create the magazine advert and CD cover we will also need to use InDesign and Photoshop.

Vicky Wright

Feedback 7.12.09

Good work. You need to post your plans on here - outline the concept for the video, upload storyboards, costume, props lists, filming schedules etc. See checklists. This week you should be starting production on the video. Use your own time to complete any research or planning evidence that you wish to include.

Mrs A

Target Audience

All products need an audience for the institution to target so they can construct the product to appeal to them. A target audience is defined as gender, race, age and socio-economic status.

Audience Profiling
Audience profiling can be split into two broad categories;
- Demographic profiling
- Psychographic profiling techniques



We have decided to aim the music we are using at people who fit into the age band of 15-39 and over. I think this will work because the lyrics of the music are quite deep, written for an audience who can relate to the problems in the song. Also the music video that we are creating tells the story of a teenager who has lost his girlfried in some way and many teens and young adults can realte to this story.

This target audience is known as the Enthusiasts by a company 'Emap' who set out to research and map the fan economy. In 2003 they did a first reseach study, under the name of project phoenix, looking at different groups and the attitudes and behaviours in relation to the way the audience consumes the music.
Enthusiasts are people who believe music is key part of life but is also balanced by other interests .

I think the gender choice for this target audience will mainly apeal to males because the artist is of the same gender and the story is about losing his girlfriend. However females will be attracted to this kind of music because it is usually the type that they can relate to easily aswell and also women are the type to feel sympathy for people who write music like this.


Kate Lydon

Narrative Patterns

Vladimir Propp

Propp was a Rusian formalist who analyzed the basic plot of Russian folk tales to idntify their narrative elements. It is this format that he created which directors of some music videos follow today to create a narrative in the video.

1.The villain — struggles against the hero.
2.The donor — prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object.
3.The (magical) helper — helps the hero in the quest.
4.The princess and her father — gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero, marries the hero, often sought for during the narrative. Propp noted that functionally, the princess and the father can not be clearly distinguished.
5.The dispatcher — character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off.
6.The hero or victim/seeker hero — reacts to the donor, weds the princess.
7.[False hero] — takes credit for the hero’s actions or tries to marry the princess

However in the music video that we want to create there are not going to enough characters to follow this format or a story that includes these characters. Our idea is simplistic with just two characters being involved.

Kate Lydon

Unique Selling Point and Secondary Audience

Unique Selling Point

Our unique selling point for our product is to attract the individuals who prefer following music of their own accord  and own interest therefore the band needs to differ from others. The music should be quirky and different from any other pop music. This will make the artist become more experimental and therefore creating more of an audience that will follow the band with their products and concerts.

"Our unique selling point for our product is to attract the individuals who prefer following music of their own accord  and own interest"  - G. Burton 

Secondary Audience

I believe that the secondary audience for our music will be the savants. People who love music and can not live without it, this audience would be very important profit wise in the music industry.

Emily.

Narrative Structure

Usually within a music video the main narrative structures that are used are Linear and Non-Linear. A Linear narrative is a music video that tells a story and has a beginning, middle and end. However, a Non-Linear narrative structure of a music video is not in a chronological order, therefore makes the audience think more about the purpose and meaning of the song.

Examples. 

Linear 

Non Linear

In our group we have decided to create a non-linear narrative structure. In a non-linear narrative we can be more experimental when filming and editing by being more abstract creating enigmas for the audience.

Emily.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

Maslow developed his theory of needs whilst researching the behavior of monkeys. From this he found out that all living creatures have needs in order to survive.

Looking back at Maslow's Hierarchy of needs and uses, there are some human needs that are within the chart that would be used in a music video that needs to be fulfilled within a person.

Emily.

Psychographic profiling

Young and Rubicam’s cross cultural consumer characteristics which is an approach in terms of peoples aspirations and there are four categories of audience:

Mainstreamers – 40% of the market, the largest section. The group seeks security in conformity and tends to buy well-known names.

Aspirers – People who are motivated by status. Buy smart, high tech and high fashion goods.

Succeeders – these have already climbed the ladder and want to keep control of what they have.

Reformers – this group wants the world to be a better place.

A new group was introduced to this in 1988 the individual who respond to quirkiness and individualism.

I think out of these five groups the group we would be aiming at is the individual as the genre is quite individual in itself as is the artist and the way it is performed. We wouldn’t appeal to the mainstreamers because it is not a well know name and doesn’t appeal to everyone.

Project phoenix surveyed 2,200 15-39 year olds (equal amounts of males and females) in order to look at attitudes of people towards music. It looks at the different attitudes and behaviors in relation to the way the audience consumes music.

They identified four main degrees of interest in music, these are:

Savants for those who everything in life is tied up with music. This represents 9% of the group in 2003.

Enthusiasts music is a key part of the life but have other interests. This represents 16% of the group.

Casuals music plays a welcoming part but most other things are a lot more important. This represents 26% of the group

Indifferents they would not lose sleep if music didn’t exist. This represents 48% of the group.

I think our group to try and aim to please would probably be the savants. I don’t think it would be the casuals, as they would probably just listen to popular music and songs that are in the charts.

There are subgroups within the four different areas which are:

Savants – Insiders – males in the mid to late 20’s who are often in bands there self

Curators – males in their early to mid 30’s who are self-declared aficionados of good music

Hoodies – mainly teenage schoolboys living at home with their parents

Enthusiasts – Miss Dynamites – knowledgeable, world wisely and ‘sophisticated’ mid to late teen girls.

Ipod Tourists – mostly males in their 20s with a passion for niche music, using it to define moods and occasions

Party Grandees – males in their late 20s and early 30s who put an active social life ahead of adult responsibilities

Casuals – The Glamour Club – music plays an important role in their lives but it’s not something they give much thought to

Weekend rowdies – males and females in their mid teens to early 20s who live for the weekend

Mums in touch – women in their 30s with busy lives who want to ‘keep up’ and not be boxed in by their age or parenthood

Indifferents – there are no sub groups to this category.

After looking the groups in more detail and the different subgroups I think they are different groups we would appeal to from the different categories. In the savants I think we would appeal to the insiders as being in bands themselves acoustic music would be their kind of thing. In the enthusiasts I think we would appeal to the Ipod tourists as they chose music to define moods and occasions and I think in some situations acoustic music may be what appeals to them.

Vicky Wright

Background of Acoustic Music

The era of acoustic music originally came after the advent of electric instruments, such as the electric guitar, synthesizer and electric organ. Acoustic music primarily uses instruments which produce sounds through entirely acoustic means.
After the hit television show MTV Unplugged which introduced acoustic artists they soon became known as unplugged artists and the genre of music became very popular.
Here are two MTV Unplugged videos;

Adele - Hometown Glory



Silversun Pickups - Lazy Eye




Kate Lydon

Analysis of similar music videos.

We have chosen quite a few different music videos from the same or similar genres of our artist to analyse them and see what we like and what we don't. By doing this we can start our own ideas for our video and see the typical conventions of acoustic music videos and see if any of these videos break the typical conventions.


1. The first video chosen was 'Waiting' by an American acoustic band named 'City and Colour', we decided this for the first video because it is very similar to what we wanted to create, we like the style and simplicity of the video, it is a performance video mostly yet with hints of narative and experimental. Putting the video in black and white works very well because of the deep theme of the song. This specific video does follow the typical conventions of acoustic music videos, however it also challenges them because of the hybridity in the genre of music video.


2.
The next video we chose is 'Droplets' by Jason Reeves, this is just a simple performance video yet it is for an acoustic duo. As a group we wanted to vary the video we looked at to show the different types of videos more famous artists have creative for the same genre as ours.


Even though the video fits well with the song, it still challenges the typical conventions of acoustic videos as it is just simply performance. This helps our work because we have more variety and by looking and researching all these videos we can decide what type of video will fit the bets with our choice of artist and choice of song.


3.


Video three is 'I'm Yours' by Jason Mraz, we chose this song because it is a hybridity of music genres but is mostly acoustic music however the video is mostly narrative which is completely different to other acoustic music videos.

Jessica Sergeant

Branding

Branding is different than an actual product, for example, by using a particular brand on a product, it can increase its chances of selling more with lots of advertising. Using branding is a very important part of selling a product as it can refer to a whole range of products made within one company. By using branding for our artist, we can create a particular image that people link to a certain type of music. Our products for this project are going to be a magazine, an album cover and a website. These three products will be linked together to promote our music; this is vital for advertising our brand.

There are certain things a band or artists need to achieve in order to create a certain brand in the music industry. The key element for branding in music is the audience. This has to be done by the way people feel and think about the music, what they can achieve from being a fan and the over impression of the band/artist to keep them wanting to listen and buy the next album. This is created from the image of the band or artist. This is a large part of branding because audiences want to see attractive people and people with a lot of personality. For example, boy bands such as Take That are very involved in branding as they have the correct look that will attract a female audience. 

Emily Haworth.

Secondary Research - Analysis on album covers

As we have decided to make an album cover for our featured artist, I thought it would be good to analyse some current album covers that are out today. Here are a few that caught my eye and would be the type of guidelines we should follow;

Robbie Willams - 'Reality Killed the Radio Star' Album Cover

I think the this cover is affective because it is simplistic yet eye catching because the image makes it personal to the audience in contrast to some album covers which include random photographs that don't link to the artist. I think that we need to make our artist connect with our target audience because the lyrics in his songs do that already, for example
"if I just close my eyes, will you be there, waiting for me"
- Wednesday Night by Alex Johnson







Another example of an album cover with the same style and message is James Morrison's, 'Songs for You Truths for Me"

However this is another album cover i like that is different to the previous two;
King of Leon - "Only by the Night"

This cover is quite quirky and catches the audience's eye because the image is different and unusual. I like the thought of using something like this for our album cover because it makes the band look interesting and makes me want to buy the CD.
The font on this cover is quite small and placed at the top which isn't a typical way of doing this. Usually the artist's name stands out to the audience. I think this band has chosen to do this because the image dominates the cover and they want the audience to notice this first and see that they are an individual band.


Kate Lydon

Feedback 25.11.09

Well done girls. You have made a good start on your research. I know you are splitting the work equally and have saved some drafts rather than publishing them but you  need to keep working on them in your time and ensure your each post somethin g regularly to show your involvement in the project. So far, there only a couple of names creditied on the blog!
Use the checklists to guide yur research and see me if yu are unsure of what to do next. In addition to all the secondary research, you need to ensure that you conduct some primary audience research and collate/evaulate your findings saying how they will inform your design ideas. It may be useful to anlyse the brand image of a band/artist across their work - music video, album covers, website etc. Likewise, analyse how music videos use the conventions you have identified.

Mrs A

GENRE

The genre of the music we have chosen, Wednesday Night by Alex Johnson, is simply acoustic. There is no hybridity in this record because when performing it is just his voice and his guitar without any electronic sounds to link in a particular genre.

I have noticed that in acoustic music videos the camera movements and the editing are quite slow paced, giving the audience time to connect with the artist and their voice. Also the lighting is quite dull and low key to create a sombre atmosphere, linking with the music.

Most acoustic musicians are extremely devoted to playing their instruments themselves and they are almost always included in the music video, with close ups of the instrument and the artist actually playing it. This gives a sense of realness to the audience to indicate to them that this is the artists passion.
There isn't usually many characters in an acoustic video, it is usually just the artist and maybe another character if it is written about someone else so this is something we need to consider as a group when deciding what to include in our video.

Narratives are rarely included in these types of video, probably because it distracts the audience from listening to the lyrics which is what the artist wants. If we just use clips of the artist and his guitar with extra props and settings this will be more focal and show how he is devoted to his music.

Here are some examples of acoustic music videos;






Kate Lydon.

Institution 2

The artist and song we have chosen belongs to a small record company named ‘Kerbstone Records’, this very small company helps organise big and small gigs and for the artist to support bigger acts over time. This helps the artist to promote himself by making CD’s of his songs to sell for a small amount, this will help more people listen to his music and get people to spread the word.

Also the artist we chose has a MySpace music account which will also promote him to the public and help create more and more fans when people spread the word.

‘Kerbstone Records’ is a very small Indie label and does have all the typical traits of this type of label, it is a small company and includes acoustic and alternative artists and groups. It was set up by young men studying music at university and grew from there, the label is also Manchester based which fits in with the genre and theme of the music we have chosen.

In our group of four we have chosen the American band ‘City and Colour’ for our similar product to examine because the songs and the style of the band are very similar to our chosen artist. Even though this certain band are a lot more well known we can still link our artist to them.

Jessica Sergeant

Institution

'a music video is not primarily a commodity form but a promotional one' A.Goodwin 1992

music and moving images have always gone together. scopitones were a french version of a video jukebox popular in the 1960's and became a model for music promotion.

1960's promotions

films such as Hard Days Night made by the Beatles were an early method of promoting new music. lots of artists made similar films such as Cliff Richard's Summer Holiday. many though were drug influened.

1970's promotions

top of the pops began using music videos especially as a substitute when the band were on tour or unavailable to appear on the show. at this point the videos were still very experimental.

The beginning of MTV

artists began to see the need for promotion for every release they made, due to changes in technology and a gap in the cable market this was possible to do. in the early 1980's there was a rise in promotions. the purpose of MTV was to play music videos and saw the beginning of 24 hour a day television. Video killed the radio star by The Buggles was the first video to be broadcast on MTV.

Buggles-Video Killed The Radio Star
by djoik

The rise of music channels

after the creation of MTV genre based channels began to grow and black music broke the market. companies set up channels as spin offs to MTV such as Smash Hits and Kerrang.

      Youtube was launched in 2005 which meant viewing videos because easier and quicker.

The Acoustic Genre
The acoustic genre is the use of instruments that make sound through entirely acoustic means. ‘Unplugged’ performances came from MTV Unplugged show by which artists rely on electronic instruments for their song. 

Vicky Wright

Introduction

In our group of four we had three options that we could choose from that include:-

• A film trailer
• A soap trailer 
• A music video.

After talking about our choices we decided that we would all like to make a music video to be creative and because it will be a challenge to all work together to create this.

The singer in the music video will be a male the same age as us named Alex Johnson, he is an unsigned acoustic singer so we have decided to do a video that fits into the video music video genre of 'experimental'. We chose this because of the genre of music we want to include a range of editing techniques in the video so it is interesting and is our own and not similar to anything out there already.


Jessica Sergeant