A Day in the life of our Target audience

To gain a stronger insight into our target audience, me and Jake asked them a series of questions in order to understand the expecatations from our niche but also direct us into making the right choices for our music video. The questions I came up with are shown below, with how they link to our video production highlighted.

Where do you shop? ( Help with costumes)

Who is your favourite band/artist at the moment? ( See the links to our chosen band/song)
What is your favourite song?  ( helps us identitfy if our song choice links)

Do you watch music videos? If so on tv? YouTube? ( where our video will be viewed.)

What device do you use to watch videos?( source of streaming and promotion for video.)

How often do you watch or see a music video? ( Understanding of the popularity music videos have at present.)

Do you prefer indie music or rock? ( Understand if our focus has to be biased on the day of filming.)

Do you prefer live performance,narrative or both within a music video? ( To be sure our storyline will appeal to the audience)

Do you want to see the artist in the video? ( Advise us in our decision to include the "Artist".)

Do you prefer the video to end on a cliff hanger or conclusion?( To help decide a powerful and effective end to our music video.)

Do you read music magazines? If so what ones?



 

Filming/Editing Schedule

As time is of the essence I felt it was important to keep continuing recording and planning the process of pre-production for filming our music video. As our first shoot is coming up soon I felt it was essential to pre-plan a filming and editing schedule giving me and jake additional time incase something doesnt go to plan. Although the plan below is rough plan I am willing to accept things may slightly be altered but atleast this provides a rough outline.

After reflecting on the initial schedule, I realised the lack of time we actually had I then re-created the Schedule.

Digipack Analysis 2

The video below shows a talk through analysing my second digipcak. Before creating the video I made a script of important things I needed to adress when voicing my opinion about the digipack. After creating the video and reflecting back I feel using a script is unsuccessful and will have to remember important factors to adress by memory.

Location Development

The Barn

 In order to organise in advance before filming, me and Jake felt it was essential to hire our venue in advance due to the high demand. Our aim was to find a free non-proft location in which was within local driving distant and also able to connect electricity.  The image highlighted below is from my mood board of Littlebourne barn in canterbury.

 After contacting the Event Organiser I explained how me and Jake were A-Level students using the location to shoot our video for our project. The Organiser was very supportive of this and hired out the barn for us free of charge. With our first location sorted me and Jake have to now prepare for filming, taking into concideration, lighting, actors and use of editing. A letter of approval and also permission from Mrs.Mluckie is needed to confirm that our footage is project based only.

Band Member Profile- Jake

Costumes

For our band costumes Jake listed the ideal outfits and I visually created them with animated characters. This helped us decide on what was and was not successful and if any outfits needed minor adjustments. We decided to present a look that heavily represented rock with elements of indie. The prezzi below evidences the intial costume plan.
                                                                                                                                                                  






When reflecting on my initial costume designs I felt there was too much grey throughout and lack of vibrancy, so to develop the actual costumes will consist of more colour and also more casual.

The images below shows how the band looked on the day of shooting. I feel there is a strong link between both the initial plan and the outcome of the clothing worn. This image reveals how our costume design had to be adapted and developed, but how we still linked to the original plan.

 

Iconic Albums

When deciding on what " Iconic " Album covers were created throughout time, I felt this could only be decided through opinion. I resorted to the social networking sight "facebook" in order to gain instant answers and expressive opinions. The slide share below evidences the responses I recieved.





My Iconic Album Covers

                                                                                   The Beatles- Abbey Road

My first most iconic album is Abbey Road by The Beatles. This world renound shot of the band crossing the road takes place just outside the EMI Studios on Abbey Road. The photo has led many fans to venture to the same spot in an attempt to recreate the shot themselves, although likely without the assistance of the stepladder and traffic cop halting traffic it took for photographer Iain Macmillan to accomplish. The reasoning behind the albums visual success is simply because of the power of the imagery and the creativity used in creating it.





 
Green day- Dookie

The Richie Bucher illustration of a bomb dropped on America is one of the more memorable covers of the nineties, and was an accurate depiction of the power over the country that the album had with the band ushering in pop-punk to the masse. I personally find this album memorable due to the humour value added with the animation layout although the meaning behind the art work is serious.

Experimenting with the Final Actors

As our main constructive criticism was the uncertainty of the final actors and also the age of our potential actors suiting the age of the voice.  Therefore we chose our final actors but then had to consider the fact that some people didn't suit the genre physically or couldn't play the instrument. They way we would deal with this would be make-up, affects,styling, planning in advance and also testing.

I  experimented with the potential lead singer and altered him to fit the video as well as experimented with miming.


Experimentation 1- Before and After
These images show how the power of editing and manipulation can alter the perception of a person and re-create them into an actor. These two images show a before and after shot of our potential lead singer in which the "after" image I took for a photography based project on an SLR and edited juxtaposed next to a "before" self taken morning shot un-edited on an iphone.

Experimentation 2-  miming TAKE 1

I set a task to our potential lead singer, in which I gave him the lyrics of the first two verses of the song, then three minutes to watch the actual video. I then asked him to film himself miming istantly after. The outcome is shown below and it reveals the concept of acting is not as easy as it seems. There were many issues to work on from the first and instant video these being; controlling humour, forgetting lyrics, lack of emotion, camera quality and also region of gaze.

Miming TAKE 2

As I was so disatisfied with my first take, I then requested my main model to create a second take. The improvement from the first take to the second was incredible but I still felt there was not a connection between the lead singer and the song visually. In order to connect with audience it was important for me to take matters into my own hand. I therefore decided that in the third take I would visually create the appearance of the lead and also film it myself in order to engage attention to the camera. I would also express to the model the pros and cons of the exsisting videos so the third attempt would create the perfect outcome.



Miming TAKE 3

for my third and final rehersal with miming, I went about it a different way by not getting the model to mime but to actually sing and then overlay the video with the audio. I thought of this after reflecting on my experience shadowing a Director. I then made my model watch how Brandon flowers ( Lead Singer from the Killers) performed in action throughout his videos so the lead could get a feel for his mannerism, behaviour and movement.

Props Listing

Below is a list of initial props in which me and jake need to prepare in advance, as it is only an additional plan I need to add more to my list as our planning develops and then collaborate with Jake.

• Projector
• laptop containing reflective footage
• zoom lense
• bible
• flash light
• drum kit
• guitar x2
• mic stands x2
• microphone
• table
• artificial lighting
• clothing change
• door
• frisbie
• religious cross
• barn materials
• extra memory card
• extra battery
• water
• stereo

• Tea Lights
• Haystack bundles
• Keyboard 
• Stereo
• Barn materials
• Generator
• Plectrum

Digipack Analysis 1

Editing styles of an indie/rock video

"The edit is the part of the video creation process where the original vision starts to become a reality. It's also where you get the first chance to repair any production errors, and where you can tie the music and images together."- Js Harding, SOS magazine.

I personally feel that all music videos use editing in the same way ; to promote.

Assuming all the footage has been captured as planned and there are plenty of takes and angles, it's the edit that decides it success. I predict that although we have storyboarded our ideas thoroughly new ideas and alterations may come to mind on set. Throughout my research into indie/rock music videos there are many similarities and links in editing that have been made apparent.

mono-scale colour- In more so the rock videos rather than the indie,I have noticed black and white colour is used. Many videos have low key lighting and encourage darker colours and I personally feel this is far more successful and effective. The video below captures how different videos use dark colour/ black and white to edit and represent rock.

Live performance-  Just like an audience shows artist loyalty by purchasing the album , 30 Seconds to mars are an example of a band who like showing their loyalty by reaching out to their target audience through their videos by including the fan in the videos as well as filming the live performance.The video above is the music video " closer to the edge" in which relate ad engage the niche market to the video. The video also portrays the band members as one of "us" rather than a cut above the rest.

use of extreme close-ups- A band who continue to use similarshots especially close-ups and extreme close-ups are "You me at six." To me as a member of the audience I am now aware of what the lead singer looks like and who he is, this is soley due to the videos. Although the bands similar sequence of shots links between the videos making the audience aware of the appearance of the band members I am still unsure to what the rest of the members look like. I therefore think close ups and extreme close-ups can have a negative impact if over used.

 Silhouetting the band- As it is very common to show the band in action in many rock and some indie videos, many artists are trying to standout by using colour or layersof texture supported by lighting to create highly successful editing effects.

Still/freeze frames-