Music video already

Today we found that there is another music video made for the song we have chosen!

This video although has its good parts, there are some major problems we need to consider. There are many shots where there are shadows of the camera and person recording which is not good at all. We do not want this at all in our video, to us this seems a larger downfall to the video.
The video though does have great colours and the cameras used are very professional. I liked the setting also and it does create a good feel to the video.
From looking at this we can now focus on what is good and bad and use this in our own video as we can improve on this.

Action plan for location viewing tomorrow

Tomorrow we are going to Bawsey pits the location for our music video. We are going to find locations to film certain points in our music video. We are also going to get a feel for the place as neither of us have been there in the recent time so we need to go to refresh our minds.


 We are going to find several locations. We need a forested area, a large tree, a place to film on the side of one of several lakes and a large open areas with a mix of all this in the background to have the band playing in front of. With the knowledge we know already, this is all here somewhere and we just need to go and get the exact place. We also will be taking photos of these places just put on our blogs and make a video diary while there getting our opinions on the places and what we think we can do here.

We will be going mid-day as this is when we are filming the video itself. This will show us also how the lighting will be at this time of day and if not correct, we can adjust accordingly. We also need to look at where the lighting is coming from, especially in the forested area as we need to know this to fit into our music video as it is being aimed to have a naturalistic feel to it throughout so no artificial light is used, or when it is, it needs to look natural

Mood board analysis

Mood board analysis

For the inspiration needed for our mood board, me and my group looked at groups such a Mumford and Sons and the Lumineers and Of Monsters and Men. There is also a famous quote which is from the famous Woody Guthrie which also influenced our decisions.

              "This machine kills fascists"

The quote is important because it links with the times he was singing and how his music was politically motivating as he was promoting liberal ideas and the genre had strong links with liberation and civil rights movements. 

We also looked at nature as a large inspiration as this is what is heavily shown in most folk music videos and also in the lyrics like in our song and 'trees' so we wanted it to show all of this also.

The mood board represents our theme nature with the green background and the pictures of natural environments. The links with other bands is also shown as these are all the same genre and there music videos link with nature like we are and also, folk, is country style music and this is also why we have traditional folk band (early 1900’s) on the board also to show where it started and where it has came to.

Our colour scheme reflected nature as this is our main idea. We have a green background showing this and also the tree idea and all our photos were of the same style or nature like if possible. These colours will also link our target audience as these colours instantly show country style and the pictures help with this

Our most significant picture is the picture of the lyrics as this is what our music video is based on. Anything we do we will have to go back to this and think about whether it will link in or not, these lyrics will constantly inspire the video throughout. These lyrics give the idea of trees and nature and climbing etc. so we also added photos around this which also help. The lyrics have been put in the centre of the photos and this is really helping us realise this is what we need to constantly look back on. 

This inspires our setting to be natural and have a forested area for the ‘trees’ link and so it works better as a video. We also want it to be as natural as possible with no buildings if possible in the main part of the music video. We like the idea of Bawsey pits in kings Lynn because this has little industrialisation around it and also has not many people visiting it, especially in the winter when we are wanting to film.

 Our props are going to be very basic as it is a natural feel all the way through when possible. We want to use little technology in the video itself if possible and try to only use natural props. We are going to have the group holding instruments though and we want this to be all acoustic guitars and drums so it looks less technologically driven.

We are also going to use the props and setting to show  a much bigger idea of nature and show that this is what we are aiming for. We would like them to feel a sense of adventure and a feel of wanting to be there and enjoy it. We also want it to connect with the audience and bring them good memories they remember and make them feel happy after watching.

 I think our mood board will help us alot when filming as it has the information needed and what we need to see so we are going in the correct direction. The mood board holds lots of different pictures and quotes and all this will help us have inspiration and think of even more new ideas. 

To make this better next time, we could have maybe sorted it out and made it a bit neater before we started. We could of drawn up a plan of what we were going to add and it could have been alot more clearer. We could of also made some images much larger to show their importance between others and this could have made it clearer.

 

Mood board

This is a post about the creation of our mood board. We have now finished it and a final photo will be uploaded once able as my SD card has corrupted with it on along with other things.

The mood board heavily affect the nature part with the green background and using lots of photos with natural scenes or lighting. We also wanted to focus on our band ,the oh hellos and its genre so we added photos of all sorts of bands from the genre.
 We also used pictures of things which will affect it, and used camera shots so that we remember to use these. We also had writing all over it so that we can write important things down to remember when filming the music video, these are the photos I have so far:

I think our mood board in the end was made to a high level because we included everything we wanted to have and also we will get ideas of this as it has everything we need for inspiration to move on with the project. The pictures all had something to bring forward and help us and also including the quotes also means we can use these to help us understand what it all means and what we need to focus on when planning the music video.
To make this better we could have added more writing in places or extracts from text to help us as this would give us other things to talk about and we could have also added theories onto it also so that we could have looked at these so we follow the theories and use these to shape our music videos.

Permission slip for bawsey pits

This is our permission slip to film at Bawsey pits, Kings Lynn. As you will see, this was created and sent by Carl as we are evening out the workload.

Hello Sir or Madam,

 

My name is Carl Ward and I am currently studying A-level Media  at Thomas Clarkson Academy. As this is our last year of A-levels we have to create a final assessment project: our project will be creating a music video.

As our music video is in the genre of folk we need a set that is very natural and filled with nature. We have looked at Bawsey Pits and found it to be more than suitable, perfect in fact.  I am writing to ask you if it would be possible for us to shoot our music video at Bawsey Pits? We would not be using any of the water at all, avoiding it in fact so that will not be a safety issue.

 

We will be hopefully shooting before the end of November with your permission?

Please do not hesitate to ask for any further details of our plans and ideas.

 

Thank you ever so much for your time,

Carl Ward

 

We have yet to get a reply but when we do i will add to this post

Blog feedback

Music video Analysis- Daft Punk- Loose yourself to dance

Story change!!!!!!!!

We had a serious think about what were going to do and instead of writing it and taking time, we made a recording on what we wanted to day:

We feel this was vital to do as our video was getting too confusing and I kept saying this to the other two but it finally came through and they realised how crazy the idea was, instead we are now going for a much better music video which is not simple, but is much simpler than the before idea and I feel this will work better as we can get the resources and we do not need the sheer amount of people or budget to do the last one. Also we took into account what the focus groups said and we changed accordingly and we feel they would prefer this more after looking at what they liked and disliked about our last one. we have taken on the idea of there being no treasure but there is more adventure and emotion which is what they wanted more of and also we added a few more scenes with singing in, another thing we needed more.
the only thing we have done against the focus group is that we no longer have the 'alter ego' as this jut was not going to work with our skills, we were demanding too much from ourselves and we realised that now so the focus group helped massively in the decision to think up the story again!

Lip sync excercise

This is our finished clip




We got to this by doing several things. We first chose out parts, I chose along with Carl to be in the video and Karl was to film and later edit it together. We then firstly chose the song, which we finally decided on gold on the ceiling by the Black keys. Karl had never heard the song but when listening to it he thought it was good idea. We then chose which part to do as this was another hard part as we needed something we could edit with but also have enough lyrics to show the lip syncing ideas we were told to do. While doing this video we also took photos of what was happening and what was going on before it.

We also came up with a basic but good idea before hand in which we were going to use to plan this, we did not take photos of this on the day but Karl did later on:

In this task, I think we did well as we were on time and did not waste any time on doing other stuff. We picked a good song and the editing was smooth for a first try and I feel it was good for a first try. The only worry I feel we had was that the amount of planning before hand meant that we were the last to finish and this could look bad but with the skills we used, I think this still went very well.

Music video analysis- Mumford and sons - I will wait

For this piece, I choose to do a video which linked wit our genre and that was Mumford and sons - I will wait. The band influence our chosen band and they are closely linked music wise so I thought this would be a good video to analyse. This is the work I did on it:

 

Focus group results powerpoint and evaluation

I created a power point with the focus group results on tonight and I feel this was important because it now clearly shows what the results were and what we got from it.





I think this presentation was good because it had lots of interactive areas like the pie chart and graph and I feel this represents our results well. I also think that the pictures of what they said was better because I would have never got all the writing they said onto the power point as it would be too long but also very boring so I felt this was a better option to do as it makes it look much better. The presentation also looks better than just writing it all in a blog post so this also in my eyes felt a better idea as a long amount of writing can be boring.

The only problem I think with this is that i only used a random sample of 10 from each class. If I used more I could of not fit it onto the graphs of pages and there would have been to much to write about but if I did this again I may of reconsidered how may used in the presentation

Characters costume hair and makeup

 

 

 

This was 2 pages I made up about what our characters would be wearing as i felt this would be good for future preference. I have tried to put good detail on what will be warn and how it will be shown as this is important for reference when filming.

 

I think this was good because I have clear pictures on both types and have given enough information about them to show what will be happening on the day and how we will portray this.

 

I think it could have been better by using more information around it and being more specific and using more detail in the picture but sadly I am not a good artist. I think though this is enough to base the further information on and i can develop these ideas with my team. 

Additional Audience Research

 I think our music video would be best played on music channels such as 4 music that has current and chart but also alternative music styles depending on when you watch the programme. This is because even though the music can sell, having it on a channel such as this means that it is being seen by more people and is not going onto a programme such as clubland as the people who watch the programme are not my audience.


To publicise our video I would send my music to local radio stations where they can play it to the local people but nowadays that also means on the Internet to on their website. I would also send it to the Sunday show, a programme on channel 4 which shows lots of new music. We could also advertise on you tube as this is a great way of new bands gaining attention and fans and being seen by potentially millions. This is also a free way and your fans can subscribe to new music and keep in touch also allowing there feedback which is a great way into improving yourself.


  By analysing Digipaks I have gained lots of ideas, the Digipak needs to be modelled around its target audience but also in our genre, folk, it is also heavily connected with the lyrics of the songs, I also want the Digipak to reflect the artists and their genre and backgrounds, it needs to be unique to them. My expectations of our Digipak will include all of those features, I want it to be personal but still connected the the style of music and target audience, I am looking at artists such as Mumford & Sons and Of Mice and Men for ideas and inspiration. 


I personally don’t buy music magazines as I can find the information I want on the magazines website,for free or I can even go to the bands Facebook, you tube or official website for information, with the rise of the Internet people are downloading music much more and using the Internet to find out about new music and what’s going on. The inter et was what we used to find our band and find all the information we did so this will be a large factor. The music magazine needs to be clear and precise though and interesting to get buyers to choose this one. The magazine would have to stand out as less people are buying magazine than what there was before.
music magazine sales falling
This article shows what is happening and this was over 1 year ago now and they are still dropping, this making it much more competitive on who is getting a market share worth having and who is not.





MTV first aired on August 1^st, 1981. Robert Pittman came up with the idea of MTV. He is currently CEO of Clear Channel Communications. The first video played was “Video killed the radio start” by The Buggles. The very first MTV Video Music Awards (VMA’s) ceremony was held on September 14^th 1984. There brands orginal slogan used in 1981 was “You’ll never look at music the same way again”, MTV reached 440 million households globally. 4Music is a music and entertainment channel, the channel first launched on August 15^th 2008 replacing the previous version The Hits. 4 Music has many programmes such as ‘4Music Buzz Chart’, ‘4Music Buzz Chart’,’4Music Big Ones’, ‘UKHot40’‘Today’s 4Music top 10’, ‘Fresh Music Top 20’, ‘Your Official Top 20’,’The 4Music Buzz Chart’ and many more. 4Music appeals to a large audience and offers many different artists and genres. These usually are split into separate shows such as dance or upcoming bands and varies on a day to day basis/
MTV is target at mainstream and rap, R&B music viewers, whereas 4Music caters to people who like many different genres of music including indie, acoustic and pop rock but it also shows dance music and the top 40 several times a week, so it is trying to cater for most people. We think it would suit our artist as they do have new music shows and ours would fit into there great.

As you can see at number 4 most watched is 4musics fresh obsessions, this is where our song could come onto the programme as it would be new and would fit the criteria 4music show and could be a good spot to put it,also having 87000 viewers is even better.

4Music would be the best channel that could exhibit our music video this because they tailor to a wide range of artists they show, they also have a programme called ‘4musics fresh obsessions' which would show our music  video and would get good ratings because the people watching are expecting new music from all sorts of types of people and genres. 
  4music also shows all other types of folk music. They show lots of Mumford and sons on the programmes and also the Lumineers. This is great because these bands are very much like our band and if these are getting large viewing numbers then they would more likely show our song because it links in well with these two bands.

The print screen above shows that people especially like to watch music at night time (2100+) as these people will be at home after school or work. They also like to watch in the daytime on weekends also when they are most likely not working and this shows that any one of these times would be great as the viewing numbers are high and the song has more chance of people purchasing it. These shows are also all aimed at its main audience and trying to get them to watch the channel more by not just showing music but comedy also such as 8 out of 10 cats as there target audience (young adults) enjoy this type of programmes.


The audience profile of the channel is young adults as they change the music with current trends and this audience are the most likely to look for music on Internet or on the TV. This is also helped now by free view being in all homes and this helping the numbers of this programme go up and have a wider audience. Mumford and sons and the Lumineers are played because people of this age group like them and want to listen to them and this helps the genre as bands like ours now have a chance to be heard and there is more chance that people will like them and buy their album. 


My expectations on my music promo have changed largely after doing some research into the audience. It needs to aim at a large audience of people who like the genre as it is these people who would buy or download the album. The fact that over 80,000 people watch one programme which would work for our song means that there is alot of people with open ears wanting to watch the music video means it needs to be done well and to a high standard. It also needs to be done sufficiently as if it is not ,it would mean it not being aimed right and we need to get some very good focus group results so that it is aimed perfectly at our target audience (16-30) because if it is not, then it would not be a successful music promo.

 

Focus group evaluation

We have now held 2 focus groups with different audiences and we have gotten some great information. The groups gave us some interesting things to think about and also helped us make our minds up on what we are going to do. The focus groups have gave us the overall general view on what they think of it and what they think will work better if we did that. This will impact our storyboard and filming because there ideas such as 'use a forest instead of climbing a tree' has made us think this is a good idea but it still needs to link to the song so we are going to incorporate both by him running through trees at one point and also climb the tree, making it link and work well.

We remembered that these people are our audience and give a general public view on what we are doing so we knew to take the opinions on board. They are the age group we are aiming at so we needed to listen carefully and we did. We had people who agreed with the idea and also others which were more sceptical. They thought it may be hard to do so we have changed our location form Sandringham to Bawsey pits which is closer and much more accessible to us, making there be more chance of it working better but still having the environment we want. The focus group also gave us excellent research finding and gave a truthful review on our ideas.We got over 35 questionnaires back and they gave us good ideas from not just folk fans but also rock, EDM, dance. They recognised that we were going to link it to folk more than anything and it had to be very much like other artists music videos as these show the genre well and work.

I think the Focus groups were invaluable to us and gave us a great understanding on what to do next and made us have a real hard think on what we are going to do next. They told us the truth and gave us things to improve on such as the idea needs to be clearer and also the story should not be so complicated. The student were also in our target audience so this was even better as they gave the opinions we wanted and were clear about it. 

The only thing i think we could have done better on is that we could have maybe got another focus group but this time at the top age of our target audience as this could of really helped us but this would have been much more difficult to do and we felt we got some great opinions from these students and felt that it would of been great to have one more focus group, but we need to get on with other parts and not focus on this piece too much.

Location ideas and postives and negatives

 

 This was some work I did before hand on what location can give what effect before I started my own one with the group. This helped as it gave me understanding on what to do and how to analyse the place in subject. After this I then went on to do my own with my team about the locations we had in mind and we put this down on a piece of A3 paper:

I think this went well as it sparked up ideas about what we are going to do and which location to pick.

This also made us really think about what locations were good for and what one was the weaker subject. We think Bawsey pits is the best idea because it is easier to get to and much quieter and still has the characteristics we want to do our filming with. The area did have disadvantages but these were balanced with the advantages and I think it is the best choice of location.