Pitches for Music Video

As a group we came up with some ideas from listening to the soundtrack over and over. We took each others ideas and built upon these so that our ideas were fully structured. 

Idea 1
This is an idea we came up with as a group.
Dark lighting and the actor is sitting in the middle of a room with a spot light on him. The camera does close up shots of the persons different body parts creepily moving for example their fingers moving, their foot tapping, their eyebrows moving etc. These shots will change to the beat of the music then when the first big beat hits it will show his eyes opening then when it says 'sail' it will move to his mouth saying the word. The whole video will be shot using one actor from various different shots, it will be dark and have many close up shots of the actors face with intense make-up on. This is only the beginning of this idea, it will build up to the actual physical appearance of the artists, it will leave the audience to want to carry on watching to find out more about the person we want the artist to portray.  

Idea 2
This is an idea that Daniel came up with after sitting listening to the soundtrack many of time through. He thought of the different themes that are being put over in the song. The first theme was the idea of the instruments used, they create a machine-like atmosphere which could be related to zombies. He took ideas from our group idea, and thought the starting shots could consist of the same close-ups but they could be more lacklustre, giving a most of a zombie vibe. The shots would then focus on the artist's face, which has make-up on to make him look partially 'dead' but on only one side of his face. Following shots would then consist of different locations, rather than just the one, that gives both machine-like surroundings and isolation.
Although Daniel thought of this idea, as a group when we first chosen on our sound track, we did a brain storm on different ideas that could be interpreted into our music video, on this brainstorm included the 'zombie' theme.

Idea 3

The third idea is the theme of  a 'break-up' between the artist and a 'lover'. Daniel first thought of the idea when he saw the new lecture-style room that had been built in our school. This would be the setting for the music video, and would have a clear narrative and performance element to it. Like the first two, the starting shots would be the same but this time, there would be a number of shots showing the artist putting a CD on, and then on the projector, showing him and his 'lover' on a recorded video. This video would then be the main source of light in the room and then to follow this, there would be a number of shots showing the artist slumped in different spots of the lecture stand watching the video back whilst clearly singing/miming the soundtrack as well. This would be cut up with a number of shots showing the crazed look of the artist that has obviously been an impact of the break up, much like the one's planned for the previous two ideas.

Idea 4

From the third and first idea we came up with our final idea which was still in the setting of the lecture theatre, along with the main source of light being from the projector. Rather than love videos being played on the screen there will be a power point about love and it would be as if the lecture teacher is teaching the students in the audience about his love life. We are not sure whether having a full lecture theatre, half full lecture theatre, empty theatre or just the girl in the audience. We are swaying towards the half full lecture theatre so it doesn't look overcrowded and the camera can still pick up the facial expressions of each individual. The girl will sit in the audience and we can use this to make an interaction between the lecturer and the girl. 

Audience Research Questionnaire

Here is the questionnaire that I made, my group intend to distribute 20 questionnaires out to and age range of 16-30. The questions used on the questionnaire aim to generate useful data, we will be able to find out what people do not like in music videos along with what aspects they find most important. Not only are there questions about the music video but we included questions about the artists representation. Once we have gathered our responses we will then analyse our results in order to gain best from the research.


Book1

Moodboard for Digipack

We was given a task to create a mood board of any ideas we had for our music video. I used the website Urbanfonts.com to find different styles of fonts which would suit our music genre. To find these fonts I typed in a key word such as 'Electronic' and 'Futuristic' and chose the ones I thought were relevant to our music genre. I then researched images that I thought related to the song, these were electric waves, lasers and eyes. The electric waves and lasers relate to the sound of the song along with the genre and the eye images relate to the ideas my group came up with for our artist logo. 

Our different ideas

Frankestein-Style Representation Graphic

1. I chose to use a dark background with a spot light on the artist. This is how I want the artist to be represented in my music video. Rather than just dark lighting or light lighting, I want there to be a dark room and the artist under a spot light so he stands out rather than seeing the background.
2. The face shows how mysterious he comes across, he doesn't let people into his life and know much about him. This also works well with the lighting, the lighting makes his face dark and the spotlight gives it the shadow of light.
3. In this image the artist is wearing a causal jacket, this shows that he is a normal person and dresses casually.
4. The use of the Xbox control shows that although all of these things give an insight to his personality, like most people their other side of them they like to 'chill out' and relax and this shows that part of him.
5. The black smart trousers contradict the use of the casual jacket, this is to show that he has another side of him where he can be smart and sophisticated. 

First Pitch for Music Video

Idea 1
Dark lighting and the actor is sitting in the middle of a room with a spot light on him. The camera does close up shots of the persons different body parts creepily moving for example their fingers moving, their foot tapping, their eyebrows moving etc. These shots will change to the beat of the music then when the first big beat hits it will show his eyes opening then when it says 'sail' it will move to his mouth saying the word. The whole video will be shot using one actor from various different shots, it will be dark and have many close up shots of the actors face with intense make-up on. This is only the beginning of this idea, it will build up to the actual physical appearance of the artists, it will leave the audience to want to carry on watching to find out more about the person we want the artist to portray.  

Filming and Directing; Pre Coursework Taster

Today our media class were able to film a year 9 band which would give us an insight to what its like to direct, film and also to understand how hard it is for the band to take orders from the director. 
We firstly set up 4 cameras, 1 (on the image above) a static camera, 2 a dolly camera and finally 3&4 were for handheld shots. We split the class into two groups, group one was firstly using the cameras and filming and then when it was group twos turn, they would sit and take notes on what the other group was doing. 

The static camera was able to give us a full shot of the band but often the other cameras were in this shot which made them unusable in some cases. The dolly shots enabled us to get a more interesting shot of the band at different angles. A path was set up which was in a semi circle around the stage which went behind the static camera. This is what I operated along with Becky, we found this easy to manouver but one major problems we had was ensuring we had a smooth line. This was difficult because we had a makeshift dolly (a wheelchair) which had a dodgy wheel. The hand held camera increased our creativity with the shots, we were able to move around the stage with the band. I also operated this camera during the end of the filming when the band were more confident with the cameras, I was filming the guitarist and got some amazing close ups of him playing the guitar and facial expressions. 

The first take we took didn't really count as the band were new to the situation and hadn't 'settled in' and gave us their full potential. By the last take the band knew what was expected from them and their confidence had increased, they were owning the stage!

From this filming experience with lots of different cameras rolling at the same time and people moving everywhere, I feel like I have more of an insight to what it would be like when filming my music video. Before this I would have filmed differently using one camera at a time rather than them rolling simultaneously. From a directing point of view I now understand how firm you have to be with the band and also giving them positive comments which increases their interactions and makes them the more confident.