Locations

So the different settings we have in our video are a house, a low lit street, a beach and a pier. We decided that an ideal filming destination would be Brighton because it fitted the requirments perfectly, it has dark streets, it has a beach and a pier. The fun fair on the pier is going to be perfect when the character becomes overwhlemed as the effect of the drugs sets in. The scene of the argument and the drug-taking will be filmed at Ellis' house, we felt that the size and destination of Ellis' house is realistic for a house of a young couple.

Brighton

Brighton is known for it's quirky culture and extravagant fashion. The surroundings, people and sights are going to be pefect for our quite abstract music genre and target audience. The main attraction of Brighton though is it's brightly lit and famous pier. When dark the pier is going to look amazing and the viewer will really be able to relate to the character in the video as he squints and shields his eyes from the flashing lights.The fact that he's on drugs is only going to add to his confusion and dizziness.

On the pier is the well known fun fair, this is going to come in so handy as the character walks from one ride to the next looking in bewilderment. We'll also use one of the rides for filming on. We plan to use the Waltzer because this ride is going to throw our character about making him feel more nauseous and dizzy. The spinning motion is going to give us that blurred affect which we are aiming for to create a sense of madness.

As our character's anger turns into sadness he'll make his way down to Brighton beach. This is mainly a stony beach and we're going to make the most of this as our character will be throwing stones into the sea in frustration. He'll then roll around in emotion in the stones. The scenery is going to be beautiful as the sea, the beach and the pier fits into one shot.

Bethan went to Brighton last weekend to take some photos of the area and location to give us an even clearer idea as to what Brighton is all about. Here are a few of her best, we're going to take some more photos of specific settings (e.g the Waltzer) on our next visit to Brighton...

Ellis' House

Choosing a house wasn't as easy as it sounds. It had to be a house which fits the storyline and that is realistic. Bearing in mind that its a young couple's house and that they're living in Brighton it can't be filmed at like a cottage or mansion. So Ellis' townhouse fits into the plot perfectly.

For the video we'll be using the majority of the house, it'll be used at the beginning and end so it is an important set for the video. The video will open with him coming through the front door and searching around the house checking no one is around. Then he'll make his way up into one of the bedrooms of the house to start taking his drugs.

Pitch

The lyrics to the song 'Demons' really helped us to come up with a storyline for our video. We decided to use a drug addiction to be the character's 'demons' and because there's a continuous reference to running away in the song we decided to link that to him trying to escape his addiction.

• To open the video we'll have him sneaking into his house and then making sure that his girlfriend isn't around checking every room. He'll then rush upstairs towards his bedroom where he keeps his stash of drugs.
• Here his addiction continues as he gets high in his bedroom. Meanwhile, his girlfriend returns home and repeats the same actions as he did, and eventually catches him in his bedroom red-handed. This is when a heated argument occurs and the boy storms out the house in anger.
• Next we see him walking down the street endlessly and neither us as a viewer or him know where he's going. We'll use a range of close up shots here to convey his fury and eventually his confusion as the effects of the drugs kick in.
• He'll then eventually find himself at Brighton Pier where he'll come across completely unstable and perplexed. It will now be dark and the bright lights from the fun fair will be exaggerated to confuse him more and make things into a bit of a blur for him. The flashing lights are almost going to be unbearable for him.
• He'll then be filmed on a ride, from his perspective and for us to watch him. The footage here won't be crystal clear but blurry to portray the madness he's going through. He'll then come off this ride feeling really dizzy and rocky.
• He'll stumble to the edge of the pier and grab onto the railings to steady himself. At this point he'll receive a text confirming that there relationship is over.
• To reflect on what he's done he'll make his way down to the beach where he'll begin throwing stones in the sea and rolling about in anger. He decides to start making his way home.
• He makes the same journey home only this time the close up shots will show a more emotional and upset side to him. The walk becomes fast-paced as he desperately wants to reach home to hi girlfriend.
• When he reaches home he knocks on the door but there's no answer, so he begins to thump the door. He gradually slides down the door distraught and ends up sitting by the door, head in hands in tears as the music fades.

Inspiration/Ideas

To really develop our original ideas we've been going through some of our favourite music videos to see if we can gain any inspiration from them so we can put real artists' work into our own video. Firstly we found Emeli Sande's video 'Heaven' and we were enthused by the effects she used whilst filming it. As you can see in the collage below there are orbs of sunlight on the lens of the camera, this gives it a natural look making it look like real life. Also the picture looks slightly blurred and crackled all the way through, this is achieved by using sub focus or filtering the footage. Again this makes the video look like real life because it gives you the impression that it's barely been edited. 







Example's and Laidback Luke's 'Natural Disaster' gave us some fantastic shot ideas. As we found the video we realised that the character in the video fits the role of our main character perfectly. The actor character seems to b high as if on some form of drug and this is really emphasised in the close up shots in the video. The close up shots in this video allow the viewer to access what thoughts are running through the boy's head and visualise how he's feeling. These close up shots make his eyes look really big and bold, making them the vocal points of each shot.

Klaxons - Golden Skans

This song is called 'Golden Skans' by the band 'Klaxons' and it was released on 22 January 2007. The music video is directed by Saam Faramand and is heavily influenced by "Can You Feel It" by The Jacksons. It features a message at the beginning very similar to the words spoken by the narrator in the "Can You Feel It" video. It also features other elements from the Jacksons' video including an inventive and contemporary use of light and dark with all three band members wearing different coloured ribbons, and moving dramatically to the music. 

The music belongs to the Indie genre, a similar genre to our song choice, and the colour scheme and abstract happenings in the video reflect this music type. The video is in a dark setting and the singers seem to be getting wrapped in brightly coloured ribbons, not something we see in your typical music video. 

The lyrics don't seem to correspond with the visuals in this video because the meaning to the lyrics is unclear. The only thing you could say matches the lyrics is that they seem to be throwing gold around in one stage of the video perhaps linking to the song title and chorus words 'golden skans'.


Although the lyrics don't correspond with the video a great deal, there are similarities between the music and the video. The pace of the song is reflected by the pace of the cutting in the video. During the slow verses the cuts are very slow and less exciting but when the chorus drops the visuals become more dramatic and the tempo increases. Also throughout the song we can hear sounds of explosions and these are shown in the video, they are perfectly placed at the beginning of choruses and at drops in the beat for emphasis.


This was the Klaxons first song and so they had to make a big impression. That they did. They illustrated themselves in a very dramatic and extravagant way connecting to their Indie target audience. There are plenty of close up shots of the band so they audience know who they are listening to. The record company are going to want to sell this track by it being recognised by its weird and different video. When people hear the song played on the radio the image of the singers getting wrapped in ribbons will come to their minds. This video represents their image as a band because it is their first step into the music scene.

The video can be perceived as a bit sexual because the artists aren't wearing any clothes however I think that they are just trying to look natural. Plus as I mentioned above the video is quite abstract and so the naked effect adds to it. The artists are very animated in the video, they are smashing and throwing things. The actions are emphasised with the use of over-cranking, this slows them down so we can see the impact of what they are doing.

There are no clear intertextual references other than the obvious 'Can You Feel It' by the Jacksons.At the opening of the video we see a message across the scene, and this is also featured in the 'Can You Feel It' video. Other elements from the Jacksons' video include an inventive and contemporary use of light and dark with all three band members wearing different coloured ribbons, and moving dramatically to the music.

This music video definitely isn't performance-based, it is narrative-based with maybe a hint of concept. The artists aren't singing on stage but are singing along in their video, at the same time their video doesn't have a story to it either. Again making it quite abstract. I'm beginning to think the video is concept-based because it seems to revolve around ideas rather than have any sort of storyline to it.

Copyright Permission Letter

In this day and age you can't just use people's work for your own use without any permission. Therefore we decided to compose a short email to the record label company of our band 'Fenech Soler' to ask via their website. The record label companies are usually fine with this efficient use of copyright so we are expecting a response of acceptance or just no response at all showing they do not object. The record label name is 'Moda Music'.

Target Audience

In order to try and distinguish our target audience we used the UK Tribes website. The UK Tribes website categorises different types of people into different social groups like 'chavs', 'emos', 'geeks' etc. It is important to try and identify a group of people who we are going to target because this is who our music video is going to be most popular with. After reading through different categories of people we decided that the target audience which best matches our type of music is 'ravers'. 

These tend to be young people who love clubbing, this set of people used to be a large community but has seemed to have dwindled (but not as much as the media illustrate). This tribe no longer consider themselves as outsiders because of their musical tastes or addiction to clubbing but actually look at other tribes as the 'weird ones'. They like the biggest and best clubs such as Fabric (London), Club So (Liverpool), Mission (Leeds) and Pacha. Music festivals like Wireless and the V festival also appeal to them in the summer time. These people like to party and suggest that people should live their life to the fullest because you can sleep when your dead!

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As you can see above I have drawn up a character of what I believe a member of our target audience may dress like. As you can see each item of clothing he's associated with in the picture is quite bold because these nd of people kike to stand out. Even the haircut is quite bold as it is completely shaved around the back and sides but fairly lengthy on top. Also a lot of the clothing is tight fitting which I think reflects their 'all eyes on me' personalities. Footwear is also never forgotten with these types of people, they've got to be fresh out the box because with the extravagant footwear they tend to wear they can't be missed by the public.



Likings and Interests

The brands above have helped us to get a clearer picture of what our target audience may look like and also what sort of people they are. I looked at the River Island, Topman and All Saints websites to gain an understanding as to how they may dress. 'Ravers' don't like to dress too smart, they prefer a more casual approach wearing t-shirts and jeans. Spending most of their time clubbing they don't have much time to dress up but nevertheless they still take great care in their appearance.   

Choice Made

After brainstorming ideas from each song we ended up with two spider diagrams to compare. This helped us to come to our final choice which is 'Demons - Fenech Soler'.

Looking at both sets of ideas we decided that this was the best option because the ideas which sprung to mind were more unique opposed to our 'I Found You' ideas. With 'I Found You' a typical boy meets girl story came to mind but this is so common and so we wanted to do something different, like we always wanted to. Also we wouldn't have been able to film a club scene very well because it would be so hard to control.

'Demons' falls into the genre of Indie-pop and so now to fill in the gaps of our plan and research we need to do some research on our target audience.

Conventions of Music Videos

Different types of shots used in music videos are used to create an emphasis on the artist, location and emotions. Close ups are used to get a sense of how the artist is feeling whilst singing the lyrics whereas long shots gives the viewer a sense as to where him/her or the band are at.

Camera movement is used to trace the performer(s) and follow their movement, the pace and timing of this helps to make the viewer feel involved and primarily makes the video more exciting.

Mise en scene can tell us as a viewer a lot about a song, this helps us to gain an understanding of the music. This includes things like clothing, lighting, colouring, props and settings. For example an artist could be dressed in black clothing, sitting in a room on his/her own and filmed in black and white. The dull colours would reflect the artists down mood in the song, this can also be supported by the type of lighting. It could also suggest that the artist is lonely or isolated because of being in an room without any company. Colour schemes tell us a lot in music videos, they can set the mood of the song and thus create a type of atmosphere. Typically indie/rock videos have dark colours and pop/hip-hop videos have more bright colours.

HipHop/Rap/RnB

In this genre of music we seem to get a reoccurring theme of women and money. Most of these music videos are set at parties or nightclubs and it shows the artist having a good time surrounded by women. Expensive items are also flaunted showing the wealth of the artist and this is also reflected in the lyrics of these songs, lines like 'money over bitches' are used. A lot of over-cranking is used in these music videos to create emphasis of the emotion and the location they are at. Again to show off the wealth and location long shots seem to be used often in this genre type. Bright colours in these videos are used to reflect then cheerful mood. The video below shows most of these aspects especially the idea of the video being set at a party.

Pop

Pop music is mostly associated with happiness, this is shown in the music videos through the mise en scene. Bright colours are often used and the artist is normally dancing around expressing their emotion. The lighting is nearly always high-key to reflect the upbeat music and mood. The editing is normally of a fast pace to create excitement and to please the target audience which tends to be the younger generation. The artist is normally singing in the video and there are lots of close-ups on his/her face to emphasise their joyous mood. Costumes can vary a little bit, sometimes the artist can be wearing quite extravagant clothing to make a statement like Katy Perry in 'California Girls'. Sometimes the artist can just be wearing clothing of the latest fashion and trends. Below is a current music video which has the bright colour scheme and which therefore suggests a happiness about it. The performer has a modern and up to date look about her as shown by her costume, hair and make-up.

Rock/Metal

This genre of music often has a depressing manner about it and this is reflected in the music videos with the low key lighting and dark colours. The bands often wear black clothing and sometimes even dark eye make up to show a sense of evil. Often the artists have dark clothes an black hair but a very pale face to show their lack of emotion. A band known to have a scary nature about them is Slipknot, they wear masks which put the viewer on edge. The pace of editing in this music genre is normally fast to go with the fast pace music and close-ups are used to show the instruments being played. The majority of these music videos are performance. Below is a music video by The Rasmus, the lead singer has the stereotypical rock look as I described above with the dark clothing and hair but white face. The video has consistent low-key lighting.

Choice of Song - 'I Found U'

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Choice of Song - 'Demons'

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Choice of Song

After assessment of our three final candidates we decided to eliminate 'The Great Unknown' leaving us with 'Demons' and 'I Found You'. We decided on this because we struggled to bring together any ideas for a song so mysterious.

With just two songs left now we decided to listen to both tracks over and over and put together brainstorms illustrating the ideas we were getting from the songs. This way we can put both brainstorms next to one another and see what song will be apt to work with.

Choice of Song

After listening to lots of Axwell and Fenech Soler material we narrowed our preferences down to three songs:

• Axwell - I Found You
• Fenech Soler - Demons
• Fenech Soler - The Great Unknown

When deciding on our final choice we had to consider many things, we started off by researching the popularity of the songs. We found that Axwell evidently had the most successful hit with 'I Found You' peaking at 6# in the UK charts. Fenech Soler's material isn't as popular because they're not as established as Axwell are. 'Demons' was 162# in the UK charts in 2011 and 'The Great Unknown' hasn't even been released as of yet. Reminding ourselves that we didn't want a song too well known we were put off slightly by Axwell's track. Then again the fact that 'The Great Unknown' wasn't even released suggests that it wasn't a very successful track off Fenech Soler's album so that wasn't looking too promising either. So at this stage 'Demons' is the favourite.

Next to assess were the lyrics of the songs. 'I Found You's' lyrics appeared to be fun to work with, the idea of an extreme hide and seek came into mind with the man being the seeker and eventually finding his dream girl. However, the fact that it was too well known still put us off. When we looked through the lyrics of 'Demons' there was also stuff to work with, lines such as 'I keep running and I don't know why' and 'Say no! I wanna let go!' we feel we can create things out of. '...and I don't know why' could suggest that the character in our video could be on some form of drugs. Lastly, 'The Great Unknown' is a very abstract song and is hard to find the meaning behind it and therefore ideas aren't easy to come by when listening to this song. Also the music isn't as fast paced as the other two which wasn't to our liking.

Lyrics | Fenech Soler lyrics - Demons lyrics

Choice of Song

As a team we decided that we can't choose a song which is too well known to the public as the most popular songs are already known for their videos. So therefore we have to find a song which is slightly less known and one which would grow on the public every time they hear it. This way we can try to convince the public that our video is the original music video to the song.

In terms of genre of music we didn't want too go for to much of a common sound but more of a diverse and different sort of music to engage the target audience. So we began looking at techno music - techno pop and techno indie in particular. Whilst doing research on this genre type we saw group names like Fenech Soler and Axwell keep propping up so we chose to look into those groups in more depth.

Eminem - Stan (Short Version) ft. Dido

This video is called 'Stan' by Eminem and it is from the genre of Hip Hop. The dark colour scheme with murky greens and grays is a typical characteristic of a Hip Hop music video, reflecting the serious meaning behind the music.

In the video we see 'Stan' writing a letter and we see and hear him rap it at the same time, thus matching the lyrics. Through the song Stan's words become more harsh and he becomes frustrated, this is also shown in the visuals as we see his face screw up.

Also more specifically there is a line where we see Stan with his little brother standing outsidein the snow waiting for Eminem to come out from his concert and we hear the lyrics, 'That's my little brother man, he's only six years old, We waited in the blistering cold for you, four hours and you just said, "No."' Another example is when we hear the line, 'I seen this one shit on the news a couple weeks ago that made me sick' and the visuals match these lyrics by showing a cut off the news.

There is no obvious relationship between the music and the visuals, like the cuts aren't necessarily on the beat and the pace of the editing doesn't change much. Arguably some would say that the pace of the editing picks up in the last scenes as Stan is driving his car, the pace of the music in this section is still the same pace as the rest however. To add drama to these violent scenes strobe lighting is put in, making it appear even more edgy.


Although what is noticeable is that we see Eminem when it's his part in the song and Dido when its the chorus and she sings. As the viewer we are encouraged to sympathise with Dido because she is the one who has to suffer with Stan's obsession with Eminem. To support this the colour schemes surrounding Dido in the video are all dominated by warm colours like yellow and orange. On the other hand Stan is often under low key lighting surrounded by grey and black colours, suggesting that he is the unfavourable character in the relationship.

Although Eminem doesn't feature in the video much himself the whole song is about a fan who is obsessed by him. This is how the record company are looking to sell the track, all listeners of the track are going to remember it for the video with the obsessed fan in. Eminem isn't actually filmed in the video until the end but his face features in it throughout, with posters of him on walls and clips of him playing at concerts.
I believe that the artist in this video is trying to send out a message to his fans, that he cares about his fans but that he doesn't support obsessive fans like Stan. This is expressed through the line, 'And what's this shit about us meant to be together? That type of shit'll make me not want us to meet each other'. I feel that he's trying to portray himself in a positive light as a star who has such a busy life but still makes time to contact his fans.

Coldplay - The Scientist

I haven't just chose this video because it's one of my favorite songs, the time and effort put into the video is incredible. The idea for the video revolves around the line in the song 'I'm going back to the start'. In the video we see Chris Martin (the lead vocalist in Coldplay) have a car crash and the aftermath of it, however the twist is is that it is all done backwards. But there is another twist still, although his actions are all in reverse, he sings the correct way. It took him months to learn how to lip sync his song backwards.

Michael Jackson - Thriller

Some say that Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' from 1982 was more of a film than a music video, it was directed by the film director John Landis. It's duration is more than double the usual durations of other music videos and it seems to have more of a story line to it compared to other music videos.

This is one of my favorite music videos because I believe it changed music videos forever. Other artists became inspired by this video to make their videos more dramatic and film-like.

History of MTV

MTV

MTV's launch date was on August 1st 1981 and it played a range of songs such as:

'Video Killed The Radiostar - The Buggles'

'In The Air Tonight - Phil Collins'

'Fashion - David Bowie'

'She Won't Dance With Me - Rod Stewart'

On August 1st 1981 launched with the words 'Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll' from John Lack and played over footage of the first Space Shuttle launch countdown of Columbia and of the launch of Apollo 11, this happened earlier in the year and was therefore massive then. Then in come he MTV theme music with footage of Apollo 11 landing on the moon, MTV used this as conceit to portray it as the most famous moment in television history. The first video was 'Video Killed The Radiostar' by the Buggles and then in between each video the viewers would see a blank black screen while an employee at MTV would insert the next video.

The impact of MTV was almost immediate. This was shown after a couple of months when records stores were selling tracks which weren't being played on radio stations.

Slogans such as "I want my MTV" and "MTV is here" in the eighties became embedded in public thought and so MTV grew in popularity. MTV has been referenced countless times in popular culture by musicians, other TV channels and television programmes, films, and books.

Today however MTV is more popular for it's reality TV shows like 'Jersey Shore' and '16 and Pregnant'. MTV has smaller sister channels today to promote music videos like MTV Base, MTV Dance, MTV Rocks and MTV Classic.

Brief

Briefs

1. A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

• a website homepage for the band;
• a cover for its release as part of the digipak (CD/DVD package);
• a magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD package).

2. A promotion package for a new film, to include a teaser trailer, together with two of the following three options:

• a website homepage for the film;
• a film magazine front cover, featuring the film;
• a poster for the film.

3. The first level of a new computer game, together with two of the following three options:

• the cover for the game's package;
• a magazine advertisement for the game;
• a radio advertisement for the game.

NOTE: All material for all tasks are to be produced by you yourself with the exception of acknowledged non-original sound or image material used in a limited way in video / radio work.

Formats - Video work must be in DVD format; audio work must be in CD format. No print item should be larger than A3 size. Games should be either in Flash format or playable on an exiting console.

REMEMBER:

• Maintain a consistent house style throughout all 3 platforms i.e. same colour schemes, page layouts, mode of address etc.
• Maintain a tangible link between all 3 media products e.g. use still frames from a video sequence within a poster or DVD cover and or embed clips of video within a webpage.
• Create a logo that will brand the product across all 3 platforms.
• Incorporate the expectations of your audience into your product.