Planning; Storyboard

As a class we were asked to create a storyboard for our music video. This will show the following things;

• It will show what number the shot is. So this means that it will show the shot order, and whether it is the first or last shot for example.
• It will show the location of the shot, for example a park.
• It will show what shot it will be, for example a mid shot.
• It will show the camera angle or the camera movement, so for example tracking.
• It will include drawing of what will be happening in the shot, drawn by myself.
• Finally, it will say what will be happening in the shot, so for example saying that the actor is miming the song.

Below are images of my storyboard.

Planning; Costume

I have 2 characters in total. One is a male character and the other is female. Costume is very important as everything has to fit with the artist's genre, which in my case is soul/r&b.

Male;
The male actor will be wearing jeans, coat and trainers throughout the majority of my music video. I will be going for a casual look as I believe it ties in with the music genre. I wouldn't go for a tracksuit because that may be interpreted to fit with the rap sort of genre, so it would be important to get this right. At some points I may have indoor scene, so they would lose the trainers and a coat and would have socks and a casual t-shirt on. The male is the main character and will be portrayed as the artist, it is very important that his costume is sorted.

Female;
The female actor will be wearing around about the same thing. They will also be going for the casual look of jeans, coat and trainers. Similarly to the male character, when it goes to an indoor scene she will lose the trainers and coat for socks and a casual t-shirt. As the female isn't the main character and isn't the artist, her costume isn't as important.

Planning; Location

My plot is to be a relationship breakup, so I plan to use different locations that I can show the couple in and then show the male character in the same place by himself.

My first idea is a park;

KLV park- There is a park in Kettering Leisure Village that I feel will suit. There is a swing and a slide, which I will show them using looking happy, and then show him at looking sad. I feel this location will suit because a park is usually a happy place for people, which I feel will work well with my plot.
(PICTURE)

Another idea is the field near this park, KLV;

Next to the park is a big field. I can show them leaving the park and just walking over to the park. I feel that this is a good idea because it can also show them looking happy here, and then show him looking sad.
(PICTURE)

A third idea I had was inside a house;

I think that this is a good idea because it would show them inside, maybe watching TV, happy, laughing etc, and then he would be able to sit there by himself.
(PICTURE)

Planning; My short edit of Adele- Rolling in the deep

Above is my short edit of Adele's song Rolling in the deep.

Planning; Using Adobe Premiere Pro

Above I have attached the original version of Macklemore's song Wings. The post below shows a short edit of this song that I created.

Planning; Music video editing with Adobe Premiere Pro

Above is the first 30 seconds of my edit of Macklemore's song Wings.

As I have done in my edit, I have now developed my skills with Adobe Premiere Pro enough to be able to lip sync the artist with the lyrics. It was difficult to do so because I didn't know the song before doing this task, so I didn't know where the lip sync clips go and I had to work this out.

Firstly, I listened to the song the whole way through to try and get to know it, and I looked through the clips to get a general idea of how I am going to put it all together. One of the ideas of this edit, was to cut to the beat of the song. It was important to do this so the video doesn't look out of place and it looks like it makes sense, and I believe I did this fairly well.

In the short clip above, there isn't any evidence of me using any effects or transitions. But, before I started putting edit together, I had a little play with these to try them out and get used to using them. I believe that these are good to use in a music video because it helps with the flow of the song, and will help massively with keeping the audience engaged because it will help you to edit it together. It is important that you don't use the same effect or transition over and over again, because it may get boring for the audience as they have to see the same thing over and over and I will take this into consideration when I do my video, as I want my video to be interesting and not boring.

I believe that doing this practice edit has been very useful as I have developed my skills using the software, and I now know how to do many things with it. I have got good at lip syncing, which will be very important for a music video. I believe my skills have improved a lot, which is good for when I come round to doing my music video.

Planning; Learning to edit with Adobe Premiere Pro

Above is my first practice using Adobe premiere pro. I have put together an edit of one person walking into a room and exchanging a few lines of dialogue with another person.

In order to start using premier pro, I needed to either open a project or start a new project. As this is my first time using premier pro, I will need to start a new project.

In order to edit, I needed to have some footage to actually edit. So I imported the files that I wanted and then I could start.

As you can see above, in the top left corner of the screen shot there is a folder. This folder contains the files that I imported in to edit. This is good because if I wanted to use a different file, all the files that I need are there so I can quickly access them.

As I edit more footage together, the bar at the bottom gets more and more full. This is good because this allows me to quickly go to a certain point of my footage, and it is easy to use.

Now that my project is completed, I exported it to Youtube. To do this, I clicked file and then export and then ensured all of the settings were correct.

After ensuring that the settings were correct, I then finalised this process by pressing the export button. I then had to wait for it to complete and then I was able to use it.

Above is a picture taken of me editing this piece together. I believe that doing this task was a success, because I have developed my skills with Adobe Premiere Pro and learnt the basics to editing. This was a good task to do because it enabled me to gain the basic editing skills, and I am now set up to learn further skills and develop them further.

Planning; Treatment for my music video

Treatment

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Planning; Pitch for my music video

My chosen song is Red by Daniel Merriweather. I believe that this song is based around a downfall of a relationship and that is what I am going to base my video around. I will need a boy and a girl to play the part in my video, with the boy being the artist. It will start off with the couple being happy, and as the song goes on the relationship will gradually get worse and finally they will end up breaking up. I believe that this idea fits to the song because the song is quite a slow one and fits into the relationship idea. The lyrics "took something perfect and painted it red" also help my interpretation because my video starts off with the relationship being perfect and then it goes sour.

Planning; My song structure analysis

Above is a graph showing the structure of my song. As you can see it starts off slow and gradually goes up. Towards the end of the song, as you can see above, it starts to go down again.

Planning; Lyrics of the song Red

Daniel Merriweather - Red Lyrics;

And I’m alright
Standing in the streetlights here
Is this meant for me
My time on the outside is over
We don’t know how you’re spending
All of your days
Knowing that love isn’t here
You see the pictures
But you don’t know their names
'Cause love isn’t here

[Chorus]
And I can’t do this by myself
All of these problems, they’re all in your head
And I can’t be somebody else
You took something perfect
And painted it red

No sympathy
When shouting out is all you know
Behind your lies
I can see the secrets you don’t show
We don’t know how you’re spending
All of your days
Knowing that love isn’t here
You see the pictures
But you don’t know their names oh'
Cause love isn’t here

[Chorus]
And I can’t do this by myself
All of these problems, they’re all in your head
And I can’t be somebody else
You took something perfect
And painted it red
When - you took something perfect
And painted it red


You take the best things from me
Then everything gets empty
That’s not a world that I need
Oh, you take the best things from me
Then everything gets empty
That’s not a world that I need
Oh

[Chorus]
And I can’t do this by myself
All of these problems, they’re all in your head
And I can’t be somebody else
You took something perfect
And painted it red
When - you took something perfect
And painted it red
When - you took something perfect
And painted it red
You took something perfect
And painted it red

Merriweather himself said that this song is about the blindness of war and the absence of compassion displayed by western administrations, but there are many different views to what the song could actually be about
I believe that the song is about him being in a relationship where he knows that she doesn't love him, whereas he loves her. This is further supported by "We don't know how you're spending all of your days knowing love isn't here". I believe that this line is questioning her as to why is she staying with him even though she doesn't love him. 
"You see the pictures but you don't know their names". I believe that this line could be about his friends or family that she doesn't have any idea who they are because she doesn't show any interest in his life. 
"And I can't do this by myself". I believe that this line suggests that he may be going through a break up or has lost someone because of problems they may have had in their relationship, as the line below suggests. 
"All of these problems, they're all in your head". This line could suggest that someone in his life is paranoid about something, when they shouldn't be. 
"Behind your lies I can see the secrets you don't show". I believe that this line could be suggesting that she may be cheating on him, or doesn't tell him anything. Or she may just be pretending that she loves him and tells him she loves him, even though he sees through that and knows she doesn't love him. 
"You take the best things from me". I think that this line could suggest that she is using him for the things he has, even though she doesn't love him. 
"I can't be somebody else". I believe that this line is suggesting that she wishes that he was someone else, possibly an ex, and he can't be them. 
Finally, the main lyrics of the song and the title of it. "You took something perfect and painted it red". I think that the meaning behind this is self explanatory. I think that it is that something that was once ruined, has now been ruined because of something. So he may have worked out that she doesn't love him, even though he saw everything as perfect and seeing that nothing could go wrong.

Research; Demographics and Psychographics

Demographics means measurable characteristics for media consumers. For example, gender, race, age, income level and their education. This is quantitive.

Psychographics is similar to, but much more sophisticated than demographics. It includes information about the sociological and the psychological characteristics of the media consumers. For example, the values, attitudes, emotional response and ideological beliefs. This is qualitative.

Research; Mood Board

Research; Artist Choice- Daniel Merriweather

Research; Potential Artist - Daniel Merriweather

Research; Potential Artist - The Loveable Rogues

Research; Potential Artist - Kodaline

Research; Brief Textual Analysis of a Music Video

      1.      Name of Artist? Olly Murs
      2.      Title of Song? Busy
3.      Date of release? 27th May 2011

4.      Director of video (if possible)? Corin Hardy
5.      What genre of music does this song fall into? Pop

6.      Is there a relationship between lyrics and visuals in the song? (Do the visuals ILLUSTRATE or AMPLIFY the lyrics? Give at least one example if they do.) The chorus goes "We spend all our time lying side by side going nowhere is really something getting busy doing nothing", so the fact he sings "doing nothing" links with thwe visuals because he is sat next to a doll.

7.      Is there a relationship between the music and the visuals? (Does the video cut to the beat? Are there solo instrumentals that are illustrated in some way by the visuals? Does the editing of the video change pace with the music? Give examples to support the points you make) In the chorus, he starts playing the guitar as there is a guitar playing in the audio.
      8.      What is the importance of the artist in the visuals?
(How is the artist being ‘sold’ to the audience? What image of the artist is being given? Does the video relate in any way to previous videos by this artist? Are there any motifs (signs) which have been used previously, or does this video represent a change? If it is the artist’s first video, how are they being portrayed and why?) The image that is given off by Olly is that he is a little crazy. This is shown by the looks that he gets off of people, this is also a point in the lyrics "I know that we're not crazy". Turns out he was right, because the doll comes to life at the end of the video.
9.      Is there any voyeurism in the video?
(Is the artist or anyone else portrayed in a sexual way? Are there any other aspects of voyeurism such as ‘screens within screens’, binoculars, cameras, etc?) There is no voyeurism in the video.

10.  Does the video have any intertextuality?
(Does it make reference to or show influence from any other media texts?) It shows them sitting in a car infront of a screen with a road on it, if that counts. Also, he makes the doll out of newspaper, again if that counts.

11.  What is the mixture in the video between performance (the artist performing) and narrative (a story being told)? The majority of the video is telling the story, but at times it shows him miming the lyrics and playing guitar to it.

Research; Andrew Goodwin's Theories About Music Videos

In Andrew Goodwin's book, Dancing in the Distraction Factory, he points out different features and characteristics which are found in music videos.

1. Firstly, Andrew states that music videos demonstrate genre characteristics. For example, a stage performance in metal videos, a dance routine for a boy or girl band, or an aspiration in a hip hop song.
2. There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. The lyrics are represented with the images. For example, they either contradict or support the words.
3. There is also a relationship between the music and the visuals. The tone and the atomosphere of the visual reflects the music's. For example, they either contradict or support what you see.
4. The demands of the record label will include that they want a lot of close ups of the artists and the artist may well develop motifs which recur across their work. For example, a visual style.
5. There is often a reference to notion of looking. For example there are screens within screens, mirrors, stages etc. Also, there is a particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.
6. There are usually intertextual reference. These could be to films, tv programmes and other music videos etc.

Research; The Script - The Man Who Can't Be Moved

I am a fan of The Script, and I believe both the song and video are good. This is because the video is relevant to the song, the video is very meaningful as he waits on the corner as mentioned in the song.

Research; Taylor Swift - Everything Has Changed ft. Ed Sheeran

I like this video because it comes across like it is showing them both as children. It also represents today's generation because they had iPhone's at their age.

Research; Olly Murs - Busy

I like Olly Murs, and I like this video. I think they have done well imitating a doll, and I like the way that the doll comes alive at the end of the video.

Research; Bruno Mars - Just The Way You Are

I don't particularly mind the song, but I believe the song is affective for it's purpose. IT is relevant, and I like the way that it shows him messing around with the tape.

Research; Blur - Coffee and TV

Although this isn't usually the music I like to listen to, but I still like the video. This is purely for the fact that the milk carton comes alive, hahaha.

Research; Dave Grohls speech at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Keynote 2013

Me as a consumer of music

I like to listen to a range of different music, and I do this at different times. Some of the times I do this is when I'm in bed, when I am doing work, when I'm in the shower or bath, and when I'm just generally bored.

I like artists such as Olly Murs, Labrinth, Tinie Tempah, Rizzle Kicks, James Morrison, etc. Generally, these are all in the same sort of music genre, but I don't mind listening to other sorts of music. For example, if it was on, I wouldn't mind listening. I don't like heavy rock music and 'screamo' music, it's horrible.

I usually listen to my music through my iPhone. This is because I always have it with me, so that it is easy to listen to. When I study at home, I usually play music so it isn't completely silent. I also like to listen to music on the television, this would be on the music channels. This is because a range of music is on there, and it allows me to view other music that I haven't heard, so I can then listen to it more.