Performers Auditioning

Jess and I decided that our performers need to have some ability to play instruments, we believe that this will make it easier for us to match tempo with action.

So here is Sam Moulsher this is him singing and playing the guitar an example of is ability and talent -

I also hope that the fact that Sam can sing will enable him to sing and not be shy when we film him, all of this will aid and improve our music video. 

Filming part of performance

Tomorrow we will be filming part of our performance with Sam Moulsher as our lead singer. This will be filmed on the sofa, with just Sam singing the lyrics.
We are going to film it in the evening so we will use artificial lights so that the shots can be seen and to create the right the atmosphere of upset and sadness that the lead singer will be feeling.

The props we will be using for this performance side is - 

A photograph of the boy and girl -

A bottle and glass of alcohol on a coffee table infront of the lead singer -

Here is the timing of the evening -   we will try and stick to this plan so that we can film quickly and efficiently, also so the actors don't get bored.

6.30 pm - Alison will arrive
6.40 pm - set up the cameras and decide what shots will be filmed first
6.45pm - get props and mise en scene ready
6.50pm - start filming
7.45 pm - finish filming

Item list for filming part of performance

Here is the item list for the performance filming, this is everything we will need to film -

• 2 cameras
• 2 Tripods
• 2 SD cards
• Photo frame
• Bottle and glass of alcohol
• CD player and CD to be able to play music for lead singer to sing along to

Costumes for Band Members and Lead singer ideas

The genre of the Song we are using is Indie Pop, so for our video to fit into this genre they need to be wearing appropiate clothing.

Here are pictures of Indie Pop band members, especially Kooks members as we need to fit in with this image and expectations of the audience.

We will make sure that our band members and lead singer when performing are in these types of clothes.

For example:

Skinny Jeans
Stripy tops
Blazer
Jumper
Cardigan

Research Representation

How is gender represented through Indie Rock videos?

The top ten Indie Rock videos found on Yahoo Music

Quantitative Research

·        How is gender represented?

Stereotypical, A typical

·        Is the gender passive or active?

·        How do costumes and shots create this representation?

I will look at a few videos and have these questions in my mind to see how gender are represented-


After looking at Foster the People the women were represented as girlfriends, or part of the band, they didn't play a large role in narrative or in the video at all. Where as men were seen to be dominant as they were the band members and the video revolved around the males a lot.



The next video I looked at was Dog days are over, by Florence and the machine -




In this video women are more dominantly presented and are seen to be powerful through the low angles used creating a larger presence and showing a more atypical approach to women,  where as men are not portrayed in this video showing a passive a typical portrayal of men.


Through this research I have found that in the indie genre gender does not follow set stereotypical rules and men and women can be portrayed as passive or active and research into kooks video shows me that women do not play a large role in the Kooks video -




however through planning my video already i hope to challenge this gender convention and have a more dominant female actor in my narrative side.

Chosen Performers

Here is the finalised list of performers we will be using for our band -

• Drums = Rob Smith

• Guitar and Lead singer = Sam Moulsher

• Keyboard = Phil Winter

• Bass = Joe Hayden

Here is the performer that we will use for the narrative side of our video - 

• Lead girl performer = Katy Ray

Intertextuality planning into my video

There are two types of intertextuality according to Fiske.

Horizontal - reference to another text but in the same meduim. film - film
Vertical - reference to another text but ina different meduim. Film - music video

I will try and incorporate intertextuality into my music video.

The first intertextual reference I will make is a horizontal reference from Christina Aguilera 'Beautiful'. In my video in the narrative side it is about an insecure niave girl that is feeling the pressures of mordern day and media on what she should look like. We are going to try and create similar shots to the actor in 'Beautiful' that also has body issues. The following shots we will try and create links from are -

Another smaller less obvious intertextuality is a vertical reference from film to my music video. The main shot we will have of our main singer singing the lyrics throughout the whole song is him on a sofa. We have got inspiration and a small intertextual reference to 'About a boy'. 

These are the shots that inspired our main shot for our lead singer. The shots portrays isolation from the one you love/ loved ones, depression and feelings of being overwhelmed manifested through the one person on a large sofa portraying feelings of alienation. 

Location Photos

Here is a photo of the bedroom that we will be using for the narrative of our video -

here is a photo of the props we will be using in the bedroom scene, this is the magazines we will be using - 

Here is a photo of the sofa we will be using for part of our performance with just the lead singer singing -

Here is a photo of the studio that we will be using for the band performance side of our video -

Locations

In our music video we will have 3 locations in which we film.

For our narrative side of our video we will be using a  girls bedroom - 

We have decided that we will try and make the room dark and use an artificial light onto the actor to create the feel that the curtains are opened and light is shining onto the actor as if the light is her freedom away from the feelings that she has - insecurity's about her body.

For part of our performance side of our music video we will have the leader singer alone on a Sofa - 

We will have him alone on a sofa to show his isolation and alienation from his girlfriend. We also will have a photograph of the boy and girl together which will be broken to show his frustration. There will also be a bottle and glass of bottle of alcohol this is a paradigmatic choice that will create the syntagm of a rockstar life style that is portrayed through most Kooks videos.

For the rest of the performance we will be using a band in a Studio - 


We are using a band in a studio where will have a white back drop, white floor which will create a professional feel to our video. This blank back drop will also let us to be able change to colours in the editing suite.

StoryBoard of Music Video

Before we could film any of our music video, we needed to plan and storyboard what will happen throughout the song. This will make it easier when filming as we will know exactly what shots we will need to film and when editing we will know what clips will be next and when narrative and performance will be shown.

Here is our storyboard for Shine on by The Kooks

i will use these to aid me when editing my music video

Possible Performers

Jess and I have decided that we are going to use a band as we have experience in shooting bands and creating artistic shots, so we will need performers to be in the band.

The performers we may use in the band will be -

• Drums = Rob
• Guitar = Sam Moulsher
• Lead singer = Sam Moulsher
• Keyboard = Phil Winter
• Bass = Joe Hayden

And then we will need a performer for our narrative side of the video -

• Lead girl performer = Katy Ray

Jess and I decided before choosing our performers that they need to be reliable, so that they would turn up on the day of shooting and would be ready and enthusiastic to film. We also wanted people who could already play instruments so that when we do close ups of the instrument work it matches tempo with action and is in time to the music. We believe that all of this will create a more professional feel to our music video.

Target Audiences

 

I need to know who my target audience is so that I can make sure meets the audiences needs and I can focus my questionnaire and focus group towards my target audience to achieve the best video possible. My target audience is the audience whom have a particular preference towards the Indie genre. However I can be more specific through the use of Youtube's statistics. 

To find Youtube's Statistics I had to click the icon next to how many views of the video 'Shine on' by The Kooks as seen in this picture  -

Through researching this I found that -

Audiences

This video is most popular with: 

Gender	Age
Female	13-17
Female	18-24
Male	13-17

I can now target my video specifically to these ages groups Females 13 to 24 and Males 13-17 to make my video ideal to my audience and meets their needs wholly. 

Research into The Kooks

As part of research and planning into my coursework production and ancillary task I want my video and promotion pack to represent the Indie Pop genre and to fit in and resemble the genre so my work looks of a professional standard.

To do so I have used the The Kooks official website to see what colour schemes they use, pictures of the bands and previous videos they have shot.

Here is the website -

http://www.thekooks.com/

Here are other Indie Bands websites

http://arcticmonkeys.com/

http://www.paramore.net/gb/

From this research these bands seem to use similar colour themes of black and white and the sepia effect, this is something that I will use in my video and ancillary task. They also use serif font, and use a bold, typewriter font (in some cases) contrasted with a harsh background. For example Black font against a white background this again is something I can use in my video and ancillary task.

The Vixens - A finished A2 video

To be able to understand what will achieve high grades in the coursework were shown a peice of A2 coursework that managed to achieve a high grade. This was produced by 4 girls and they have produced a music video to 'Voodoo child'.

After watching the video there are many elements of it that I believe contributed well to the high grade but also to add a more professional feel to the video.
One part was the location,  the studio background with a white sheet gives it an element of professionalaism, I really like the idea of the studio background and in my own music video I will have a band so I hope I can use a white sheet to have a studio feel to my own video.

Another element of the video that I really like and feel it adds to video and also interests and engages the audience is the editing and the use of changing the colour I believe it fits the video and genre well adding a sophisticated artistic video. If appropriate I would like to add colour change even if it is just black and white - I believe the black and white effect will fit suitably into the Indie genre.



Ideas for Narrative and Performance

Jess and I have wrote a list of what we roughly want to include in the performance and narrative sections of our video and what locations we will use. We have decided that we will do this before we storyboard so we have a direction and a focus and then we can research and plan the rest of our video around these ideas.

Here is the image of the ideas -

Shot ideas of performance in music video

Jess and I wanted to establish certain shots that we will aim to film of the band so that we have enough footage for when we edit but also to achieve good and a variety of different shots that are interesting and add to our video.
When creating the list for the shots that we want we were able to use our prior experience of Radar Love and filming The Strangers and our knowledge of what shots work well on screen and will make our music video better and what shots don't.

Here is a diagram of the shots that we hope to achieve -

Conventions of my chosen genre

In order to make sure that the music video I produce is in the correct genre, and fulfills the audiences needs and expectations of what should occur in an indie pop / rock video. I watched a wide variety of music videos in this genre to find common conventions that I can then use as a guideline to achieve a video that fits and satisfies the audience!

Here are some links to the videos that I used to produce this spider diagram -

I hope that through this research into the cnventions I will be able to produce a music video that meets the target audiences expectations.

Permission to use the song 'Shine on'

Before we can start to film our music video and before we go too far into the planning of what we will do in the music video. We must try and get permission from the band to be able to use the song for our video for copyright reasons. I have tried to contact The Kooks via the social networking site Twitter as I believe that many bands use twitter to keep in contact with their fans, so I will most likely get a response through this method. 

So far I have no received any feedback from the band so I will continue to plan and research my video to  Shine on by The Kooks.

Lyrics to Shine On

These are the lyrics to Shine on  -

Intro - 23 seconds

Safety pins holding up the things  0.23 - 0.26
               That make you mine   0.26 - 0.29 
About your hair, you needn't care, 0.29 - 0.33                  
You look beautiful all the time.  0.33 - 0.37
Gap - 4 Seconds
Shine, shine, shine on  0.41 - 0.44
Yes   0.44 - 0.46
Wont you shine, shine on 0.46 - 0.51
Gap - 4 seconds
Your magazines, at people at the seams 0.55 - 0.58
But you still read 0.58 - 1.01
I must admit, I don't believe in it  1.01 -1.05
But I see how you get sucked in  1.05 - 1.09
Gap - 2 seconds
Shine, shine, shine on  1.11 - 1.15
Yes 1.15 - 1.19
Wont you shine, shine on 1.19 - 1.22
(Sha la la la)  1.22 - 1.26
Shine, shine, shine on  1.26 - 1.30
Yes  1.30 - 1.33
Wont you shine, shine on  1.33 - 1.38

Because your not done 1.39 - 1.41
Gap - 4 Seconds
Why do you buy the hand that feeds you 1.45 - 1.50
Why do you 1.50 - 1.52
Why do you buy the hand that feeds...you! 1.52 - 1.59
Gap - 17 Seconds
Shine, shine, shine on 2.16 - 2.20
Yes  2.20 - 2.23
Wont you shine, shine on  2.23 - 2.27
(Sha la la la) 2.27 - 2.31
Shine, shine, shine on 2.31 - 2.34
Yes  2.37 - 2.38
Wont you shine, shine on 2.38 - 2.43
Gap - 2 Seconds
Safety pins holding up the things 2.45 - 2.49
That make you mine 2.49 - 2.51
About your hair, you needn't care 2.51 - 2.56
You look beautiful all the time 2.56 - 3.00

I have wrote the timings of when lyrics are sung and when there are instrumental gaps in the music. By doing this when I story board my music video I know what parts I will need to focus on the performance and when I will need to focus on the narrative. I will do the performance pieces through some lyrics and the instrumental gaps where I will have shots of the whole band and the main singer and then the narrative sections throughout when the lyrics are being sung. 

Finished Strangers

After filming our video in our group we had two lessons to then edit our video before we showed our class. Through this process it has given me extra practise in filming and editing performance side of music videos, but especially with a band. This is vital to me as in my own video I will be using a band.

Here is our final product -


The feedback we received of members of the class were that the lip syncing was good and the transitions were effective. However we could have used more editing skills to make the video fit into the genre and feel more proffessional. This could have been done by changing the colour to black and white or saturating the colours or using sepia effects. I will try and use this feedback in my own coursework video.

Research and Filming The Strangers

Today on the 9th November we had the opportunity to film an upcoming band called The Strangers.
 

http://www.youtube.com/user/bornstrangers

http://www.facebook.com/bornstrangers

The strangers music genre is dark pop, electronic and pop. 

We were put into groups, in my group was Harrison, Emma, Gemma, Becky, Josh and I. We had to plan to some extent to where we were going to place cameras and who was going to be operating which. We had allocated these positions so that when the band arrived at 11am we were ready and organised to film.
We chose for them to sing 'It was a sin'
here is there very own music video for it was a sin -



  

We only had one opportunity to film and the main issue we found when filming was getting all the cameras in sync so that when we go to edit the lip syncing and instruments are playing at the same time. Another problem when filming was trying to achieve good shots, for example Becky and I wanted to achieve some close ups of the drum work but keeping a good shot while zooming in was difficult.

I believe that through this opportunity of filming the Strangers we have relevant experienced of filming the performance side of music videos. This combined with Radar Love, I believe that when I come to film my own coursework I have the skills to shot a good performance side of the video.

What type of music video will our music video be?

After researching and watching many Kook's and Indie pop/rock videos, I have found that they are a hybrid genre of narrative and performance however they are largely performance. This is something that we will follow to make sure that our video follows a similar structure to other videos in the same genre, and that it meets the audiences needs and expectations of what should be in an Indie pop/rock music video. We will also contain a large amount of band performance shots another key element to Indie pop/rock music videos.