The Pitch

As a group we pitched our first initial idea to Luke as we had a better understanding of the idea than any of the other ideas that had been shortlisted. We received positive and negative feedback that would help our group develop the idea and build on it.

Here is a video of my group pitching to Luke, Jason (my teacher) and students in my class.

The Pitch - Presentation

Sleigh bells kids presentation from Megan Mackay

Speakers from Polydor Records

During our lesson we had Emily Teadrake and Hanna Cher who are video commissioners at Polydor Records came into speak to us about the music industry. We talked about what their job consisted of, meeting with new artists and chatting what they want to do and speak about the general look they want to go for. We then reviewed some treatments, which are packs that break down styling, picture and video references, this can been shown through a moodboard or a video and the track can be edited into the video. By creating a treatment helps increase the chances that everyone working on the project is on the same page and knows exactly what is happening otherwise it could be a nightmare if the end result is not what was informed. Emily strongly said that you should not put anything in the treatment that is not realistic as you could get the artist excited then realise you can not afford it etc.

Songs/videos we looked at:

OFF BLOOM - LOVE TO HATE
- New artist
- The video is to look like they are not signed to a major label
- People/fans and buying the band not the record label
- Low budget
- getting enough imagery
- sense of community

'THE VIDEO IS OUT IN OCTOBER' 

JAX JONES - HOUSE WORK

- Very quickly made

- Very low budget

- Director did this video through passion

- Editor was on set

1975 - A CHANGE OF HEART

- Black and white (represents their branding - logo)

- Much higher budget

- Filmed in a fair ground at night time

Audience Profiling

Audience Profiling in the music industry is the way that academics and institutions discuss what people like different types of music styles. Demographic segregation is when people are divided into groups by looking at their age, race, sexuality and gender.

During our lesson my production group spoke about using the VAL's method to segregate the views for 'Kids' by Sleigh Bells. VAL stands for Values, Attitudes and Lifestyles.

Teenage VAL's:

Trendies - they crave the attention and admiration of their peers.

Puritans - who wish to feel virtuous

Innovators - who wish to make their mark

Rebels - who wish to remark the world in their own image

Groupies: who just want to be accepted

Drifters - who are not sure what they want

Drop Outs - who shun commitment of any kind

Traditionalists - who want things to stay as they are

Utopians - who want the world to be a better place

Cynics - who have to have something to complain about

Cowboys - who want easy money

After my group read through all of these possibilities for an audience member Genny and I created a Myspace account for a fictional person who we thought would fit perfectly for the demographics - VAL's for our Sleigh Bells 'Kids' music video idea.

https://myspace.com/deadjellies101

Moodboard on Pinterest

These are a couple images I found and created a Moodboard on Pinterest to help catch the concept of the idea:

Word Cloud for Idea 3

Group Idea 3

Drop by Chloe X Halle:



This was one of my original ideas but I have developed it slightly with my group. A (18-22) female standing in a white cube/room that is placed in the middle of the woods at sunset so you get the orangey/yellow colours of the sun. 

At 0.48seconds coloured dried ice bursts out from everywhere covering the room and artist this would be shot in slow motion. This cuts between different settings of the cube, so adding mirrors so the solo singer is multiplied, this idea formed by the original video as they are twins. This music video would be very abstract


I wanted to keep the beginning simple as when the dried ice explodes there is a greater impact. 

















Similar video's ideas:
- The box in the sky has a similar concept







Glass box in the air:

Word Cloud for Idea 2

This word cloud shows a list of words that represent our second music video idea. 

Group Idea 2

Til' I Find U by Austin Mahone:




A young (teen) boy walking down a street searching for a girl - as said in the lyrics of the song. As the male singer passes in the street there are passing predestrians that start dancing behind him, creating a fun atmosphere, it will look slightly like Pia Mia's song 'Touch':



During the music video there will be moments were the male singer sees the girl but then looses her instantly for example,  he notices her from across the road and when a car drives by it goes past and she has gone. However at the end of the music video they find each other as they bump into each other unexpectedly.







Similar videos:

Vegas Girl by Connor Maynard:



Hurtwood Music Video 2015 - Whistle For The Choir:

Group Idea 1

Kids by Sleigh Bells:


Our group decided to use Genny's song for our first idea, but slightly changing the idea. We came up with having a high school/college setting, very stereotypical looking characters e.g. cheerleaders and jocks. Our idea will hopefully generate and evolve into a sort of satirical video.

The video will be narrative based, however using various quick shots to mirror the beat/rhythm of the song, this will keep the energy of the song in the video. Our group thought about having shots of the 'popular kids' walking down the corridor and everyone else moving to the sides.



Other shots would be of having cheerleaders and jocks carrying a baseball bat over their shoulder of hanging by their side, then in another fast shot having it covered in blood then suddenly it changing back to being clean. Also using black eye contacts with the same purpose - smiling normally then a shot of the black eyes and then changing to normal again, this can be repeated with blood in the mouth etc.

Another idea would be to have the cheerleaders pull into the school/college car park in a sports car and a shot of then opening the door and getting out whilst flicking their hair. Then filming them walking up to the front doors of the school carrying books and backpacks.



This is a website our group made that would fit the kind of artist/band that would fit this profile of song/music video. We chose this homepage image as it suggests a high school soccer/football pitch, which relates the music video but not throwing away the idea. I think this band/artist would be more organic so letting the music speak for itself, without self promotion.

Similar Artists and videos:

Banks: 




Die Antwoord:



Trailers/Movies:


From 1.37 - 1.41 our group really likes the editing they have done and we think it would be really effective in our music video.

Word Cloud for Idea 1

This word cloud shows a list of words that represents our first music video idea. 

Research in the UK music market

I made an observation that all the artists shown below all have a different star image and they are not all of the same genre/style. The BPL (British Phonological Industry)

This hyperlink shows more information and facts about the British music in 2015:

https://www.bpi.co.uk/home/bpi-2015-music-market-report.aspx

What not to do and what to do in a music video

In our lesson today we had Luke who works and helps with the production of the music video's came to talk to us about the do's and don'ts for a music video.  He has 20 years of experience of working in the production of music videos.

1. Should not use famous artists as there are too many problems that occur for example people would observe a Beyonce song and question why the original singer is not performing.  

2. Don't use popular songs as the audience will question who is singing.

3. Do not pitch an idea where there needs to be a large crowd of people for example; nightclub or festival as it would be hard to film and we wont have enough people.

4. Public locations are always hard as you have to obtain consent from anyone who walks through the filming.

5. He mentioned that we should treat this task as a real production company especially if we wanted to go with an amateur/up 'n' coming band to help promote their song and make them a real music video.

6.  The song and the video should link well with the mood of the song. we were given a tip for future reference, that your music video should be released 6 weeks after releasing the song.

7. During the video in the middle 8 we should have something completely different e.g. slow motion or sped up depending on the tempo of the song you have chosen.

We watched a music video that was very interesting: Breezeblock by Alt-J

My production Group

Welcome to my production team for making a music video:

Our task is to work as a small independent production company and create a promotion package for the release of the album, including a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

1. A website homepage for the band 
2. The cover of the CD
3. A magazine advertisement for the CD

This task must be completed by the end of the Autumn term, which is December.

A Rocky Ride

This is an image of my journey throughout the past year during Media.

• The mountains show that there were ups and downs on the road but ended on a high. 
• The clouds and rain are showing the down fall in the middle of the year where panic started to appear, stress of not being finished or organised in time for the thriller shoot. 
• The sun represents the making of the thriller with my production group. 

Initial Idea 2

Song: Drop by Chloe X Halle

A (18-22) female standing in a white cube/room then at 0.48seconds coloured powder shoots out covering the room and this would be shot in slow motion. This cuts between different settings of the cube, so adding mirrors so the solo singer is multiplied, this idea formed by the original video as they are twins. This music video would be very abstract. Starting at 0.18 then it cuts at 1.14 to start again at 2.07 until 3.30, which ends up being a 2.30minute video.

Mirrored room - displaying multiple views of the solo artist.

Coloured Power that gets thrown into the area.

White room/box that solo artist performs in.

These two artists are very similar to Lorde. They have the same tempo and same dynamics. Lorde is a New Zealand singer, her first single was called Royals, which was released in June 2013 it was characterised as an art pop/electro pop. The song, written by Lorde and Joel Little, is lyrically disapproving of contemporary artist lifestyle.

Initial Idea 1

Song: Burning Benches by Morning Runner

Runner is an alternative rock/pop band who were formed in 2003 in Reading UK. There were 4 four members to the band, it included a singer/guitarist, drummer, bassist and a pianist. The band unfortunately split in 2007 due to commercial pressures from their record label. The one album they released in 2006 was called 'Wilderness Is Paradise Now' and their song 'Burning Benches' made the top 20 single chart. 

A young (20-25) male playing a grand piano in a plain white empty hall wall/room whilst singing. When the music builds up at 1.11 in the song, we see a different male and a female dancing on a beach flashing back now and then to the piano player. At 2.21 in the song we cut back to the piano player for the last couple cords in the song.

Cut the song from 2.26 until 3.52 to get a good finish, which makes the video 2.43minutes.

I would say that Morning Runner is very similar to the band to Snow Patrol. It has the same restless but empowering tone. Snow Patrol are an alternative rock band created in 1993. Their first release was called Polar Bear

Photoshop Introduction

Through the A2 course I learnt how to use Photoshop. Photoshop is digital editing software that allows the user to adapt any photos or even connect two or more photos together, which develops into something completely different from the original photo, creating an album artwork piece for example. Photoshop is designed so that anyone can use it from a beginner to a professional with lots of experience. There are so many tools you can learn and they are all labelled and manageable to figure out.

In Photoshop you have a section where is shows you your ‘layers’. This tool is used to help your work not get messed up or limit the chance of your work getting deleted or lost. You would build you final product up in layers so they are separate then one layer shows how the image looks all together, so each part will be in different layers.

Some tools are very important for starting out for example the cutting tool. The Lasso is one of them, you can select 3 options; Lasso, Polygonal Lasso or the Magnetic Lasso. These allows you to select a section from the photo and cut around the image leaving you with the cut area. You can then copy, paste, rotate etc. until you get exactly what you are looking for.

One tool I used a lot of was the undo button. Being a beginner on this program I made a lot of mistakes that I needed to correct, however by making mistakes helped me learn more about the program and showed me what to do and not what to do.

The more time I spend on this program the more I will come to grips with is all, so the first time I used Photoshop I went at a slow pace so I could really take everything in. This process has encouraged me to be more adventurous on the program, trying new things so hopefully my final product will be just how I want it.