First draft of timeline

Today we were making a timeline for our video. At first, we listened to our song again. We outlined all moments when there is an extreme change in beats or starts and ends of choruses. We also outlined all three elements. Then, we started to put all these elements on the timeline in order we thought will be the best. For some moments we decided to play with lyrics and put the picture that would match them.

Outline of music video

• Element 1
  
  
  • What Happens?  
    
    Artist sitting on the sofa, lipsyncing. May stand up, sing on camera.
  
  
  • Lighting
    
    White lighting to bring out the contrast of couch and lipstick.
  
  
  • Set
    
    White room (photo shoot white wallpaper), with a single red couch in the centre of the room.
  
  
  • Props and costumes
    
    Red couch is a single prop.
    A costume is a tight white costume, white high-heels, white hair (white extensions and hair-dye) with cherry-red lipstick, black eyeliner.
  
  
  

  2nd room within 1st element
  
  • What Happens?  
    
    Artist sitting on the sofa, lipsyncing. May stand up, sing on camera.
  
  
  • Lighting
    
    White lighting to bring out the contrast of couch and lipstick.
  
  
  • Set
    
    Red room (photo shoot red wallpaper), with a single white couch in the centre of the room.
  
  
  • Props and costumes
    
    White couch is a single prop.
    The costume is a tight red costume, red high-heels, white hair (white extensions and hair-dye) with cherry-red lipstick, black eyeliner.
  
  Element 2
  
  • What Happens?  
    
    Two dancers (one male, one female) are dancing in a red room, gradually becoming closer and closer. Every time they touch, a light bulb/light turns on. Later in the video, dancers become silhouettes because of bright lightning.
    
  • Lighting
    
    Lit like the 1st element, with the addition of more bulbs turning on as the video continues. The light will also become incrementally stronger until you cannot see the dancers.
  
  
  • Set
    
    
    Red room, bulbs strung around the room.
    
  • Props and costumes
    
    
    

    Props: Light bulbs
    Costume: white simple dress, with a white t-shirt and white trousers. All wear white shoes (TBC)
    
    
    Element 3
    
  • What Happens?  
    
    Artist lies on the floor, underneath her is white light (can be CFL or lights used in don’t stop, shown below), which lights her up. She may dance on the floor
    
    
  • Lighting
    
    
    White CFL lighting under floor
    
  • Set
    
    Empty room (TBC whether black or white), with only light ‘bed’
    
    
  • Props and costumes
    
    
    Props: white pillows and white sheeting
    Simple white dress
    Or keep costume the same (TBC)
  
  
  2nd set within 3rd Element
  
  
  • What Happens?  
    
    Artist lies on the floor with a guy, underneath them is red light (can be CFL or lights used in don’t stop, shown below), which lights them up. They lie, hug may be dance together
    
    
  • Lighting
    
    
    Red CFL lighting under floor
    
    
    
  • Set
    
    
    Empty room (TBC whether black or white), with only light ‘bed’
    
    
    
  • Props and costumes
    
    
    Props: red pillows and red sheeting
    Costume: simple red dress

Audience Profiling

It is very important to understand who your audience is when producing that kind of work. We decided that our music video will target girls at the age of 14-16 years.

In the modern industry, the audience is achieved demographically and psychographically. 

Demographic means that the audience segmented according to such social criteria as gender, class, race, sexuality. Demographic segmentation involves JICNARS scale. JICNAR stands for Joint Industry Committee for National Readership Surveys.

A psychographic segmentation is a lifestyle profiling. It looks on the psychological profile of the consumer and how they conduct their life in market-place. Attitudes, values, beliefs and lifestyle choices are sorted into categories which are used to predict consumption. To divide the audience VALS system is used. VALS stands for Values Attitudes Lifestyle. 

There are also teenage VALS which is more appropriate for the younger audience. It will probably be the most useful for us this year as we target teenagers. 

After analysing who is going to be our target audience, I created this mood board to represent it:

Feedback on our first treatment: target achievement 2

The other task I had was to think about third element in our video which would link everything up. The firs idea I came to was to show the artist in a bed with white sheets and then to show her in the same bed but with red sheets. That would link the colour theme and also would give more opportunities for lip-syncing. The idea was to show to emotions: loneliness and passion. So that when she would lie in white bed she would struggle and be unhappy, but in the red bed she would be with a man. However, we then thought with my group that coloured beds would look similar to sofas and the idea won't look interesting.


However the concept was liked and we decided just to change it a little bit. Instead of the bed we decided to put artist on the floor which is lighted up with either red or white lights. This would look more interesting and there will be more space to play around as artist could dance on the floor.
For now, we just understand that it may be hard to find a man which can lie down with the artist so it may make the search of cast much more difficult.

Feedback on our first treatment: target achievement

We set ourselves different targets after the treatment.
Firstly, I had to decide on the dance we want to see in our music video because we were said that contemporary won't look good as the music is not appropriate for it. However, when I played the music at the same time with the contemporary dance, I could see them together in our music video. I also tried to look on other genres like hip hop, but they didn't worked so well and couldn't show the idea we want to show to the viewer. So here is an example on the kind of dance we want to make:

Feedback on our first treatment: dividing tasks

Here is a plan of who will develop certain concepts of our music video:

Dance: Andrew + Anastasia
Lighting: Dora
Costume, hair+makeup: Ya-fei
Third element: All group
Casting: All group

Feedback on our first treatment: goals for the development

• Find a new dance style that is appropriate for our song - watch more videos of it 
• Decide on type of lighting and colours (type of lights/bulbs etc) 
• Plan the third element, more of fitting the theme of the music video rather than with the colours 
• Find our three actors: male dancer, female dancer, and Cheri.

Feedback on our first treatment: key points

- Using interpretive dance can be ineffective, idea to use the dances that fit more with the music

- Using the build-up of the lights to gradually make the two dancers silhouettes - interesting

- The third element is too ‘fluid’ for the music, requires something jumpier

- The third element needs to link with whole music video to make it ‘complete’

- The third element needs to also be more interesting, and more filmable (fish and ink gets uninteresting too quickly)

-Could try to add variety to the first element - have her in all red in a white room, then swap and have her in all white in a red room.
-Idea with fish should be checked as it can kill fish itself and tank for it may be too expensive

-Song does not fit with ink and water idea as it is not ‘fluid’

-Finding a choreographer may be tricky

-Smoke mushrooms don't fit the idea, as they are brown. Red mushrooms connote drugs, don't use them unless this is what you want.

-An idea with fish in the aquarium is good. You can even try to film dancers through the aquarium to link 2nd and 3rd elements.

Feedback on our first treatment: notes

When Andrew was pitching our idea, the rest of the group were writing notes so later on, we can change our idea to make it better.

So here are notes that we have:

Feedback

Chasing highs
10 million hits
Dancer, like the light, but how the dancers are present can look not as ideal
Consider the light of the bulbs, how it changes the colour of the wall
Takes time to shoot the bulbs element and build it
The light of the bulbs can change with the wall
Best not to kill the fish
The third element it’s very important
Have to have something else that links every element other than the colour
Think about what the image says rather than just the colours
And how fluent the dance is, the song it’s not exactly fluent
Think about the third element again
And the colours, maybe make it contrasting

Song: good track, not fluid- not really good for contemporary and fish swim

Concept: need choreograph, light is good, red can change to white because of light, better not to kill fish, something should link the third idea with previous, have to buy a fish tank - expensive, add something interesting- building up, ink not working with the song, third element!!! , red set white sofa idea - contrast, third element should tie everything together, have to think about the girl (cast)

Feedback on our first treatment: overview

Today we have received a feedback on our treatment. We divided our group into two subgroups so that when half of the group was pitching the idea, the other one would make notes. For that lesson, we made a presentation on Prezi and also printed out all the pictures so that our idea would be more visual.
The presentation that we created was liked by the audience we presented. The song was also approved, however, we were said that some ideas we had, for example, fish, is not going well with the song so we have to think more about matching sound and picture. The main idea of minimalistic presentation and the idea of two main colours white and red was also liked and said to be very interesting, however, we understood that that should be a theme that will connect all elements not just colours. The second element that we have got (dancers) was criticised as it may not be well planned yet. We were said that the music may not fit the dance we were thinking about. Also, it may be hard to find a good choreographer for us. The bulb element in this scene was said to be very interesting, however, we should think more about the feedback we got one more interesting idea for this element: to increase the brightness of light through the video so that in the end dancers become silhouettes. The third element was the most criticised as we have not planned it thoroughly yet. At that time we had just bunch of ideas that were similar in colour. The fish idea was declined as it is forbidden to hurt and especially kill fish. So the main target for our group after that pitch became finding the whole idea and therefore a third element that would link everything together.
how we are going to shoot them and where exactly we want to place them. In addition, from the
Now, we are processing all the information that we received in order to improve our idea.

Group treatment

Here is a treatment which we have done with my group (Andrew, Dora, Yafei) to show our main idea for the music video:

Choosing idea for coursework

After we were divided into the group, we told each other our best ideas to choose from. Here are the links to those ideas:
Dora's - http://doramartynyuk.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/developed-idea.html
Andrew's - http://andrewjensenmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/my-developed-idea.html
Yafei's - http://yafeismediablog.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/improving-idea-1.html
Mine - http://hurtwoodmedia16anastasiiasonina.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/developing-of-idea.html

After considering all of them, we decided to take Andrew's idea as we all think it will be the most interesting one. Now we are starting to work on our treatment, which we do on Prezi. We have chosen Prezi as we can work on that presentation at the same time on different laptops, which is quite productive I should say.

My group

We were divided into groups today and I got in the group with Dora, Andrew and Yafei!
Here is our photo :)

We all have very interesting ideas, so now we will decide which is the best one to use this year.

Development of idea

I decided, that my best idea is the second one, so I want to develop it more. I made a decision that it is going to be a typical love story.

So the main set will be in the cafe. I was planning to go somewhere in Guilford to shoot it as I think setting cafe in studio won't look good. There should be at least 5 tables with people that can be seen in the shot. I also decided to shoot in the evening as I want to have pretty lights around and candles on the tables to create a romantic atmosphere.

The artist will see on the chair, holding the guitar in his hands. This is a small cafe, so there would not be a microphone. The artist will wear white shirt and jeans, audiences will wear more casual clothes.

The main girl will be a brunette, wearing a dark dress.She will sit somewhere near the wall.
So at first, we will just see the artist from different types of shots and how different tables listen to him. Then there will be more shots of the girl. Every time she will be in the shot, there will be clues that she likes the artist. We will use such stereotypes as giggling, touching hair, becoming shy and others. We will use shot reverse shot, and by this, we will create a link between these two. We will show that they see each other and that when the guy see how the girl is smiles, he smiles back.




Then, we will start to see different shots. Those would be in pastel colours to show that it is a pleasant future that will happen to them. There will be couple different situations that will show their happiness.

Firstly, we will see how they are cooking at home together. They will laugh, talk and touch each other's hand and face. The second scene will be how they are talking in the park. They will hold their hands together and also smile to each other. The third scene will show how he is singing the same song to her when they are lying on the sofa. This will be one more performance element when he will do lipsync.

At the end of the video, we will see how the girl leaves the room and the artist finishes his song in disappointment. However, when he then stands up and comes up to the table where the girl was sitting, we will find a piece of paper where her phone number is written. He smiles and the video ends.

Early feedback

Today we were pitching our ideas to our media class. I told my class about the first two ideas as I like them more than the third one. After pitching, I asked them about their opinion on my ideas and any suggestions on how I can improve them. Here is the video of feedback that I received:

The main points are:
(first idea)

• To connect somehow all three elements as they have to have a link. For example by using the same colour
• Maybe do something with drums
• Think about filming at night as it can be tricky

(second idea)

• To include more locations of happy future to the second video and make these look very romantic 
• Maybe include a clue, in the end, so the audience can understand that these have not happened yet.  For example that after singing the artist comes up to a girl and asks her phone number.
• To make an idea either very romantic and cheesy or play around more and include more extraordinary details

Overall, I am very pleased that my class liked the both songs I have chose. However, I understood that there are many things which I have to think about. For now, I think that the second idea is more successful as the narrative part connects it all together and makes it more interesting to watch. I think I will need to develop it more by adding more details into it. I will probably leave it as an ordinary love story as it was my main idea from the beginning.

Campaign for third music video idea

Here is more then one artist-the whole band, so I want to show all of them on both website and digipak.
On the website there will be a photo of all of them. They will be in different clothes to show that they are all different personalities. There will be also as usual links to all social media, photos, news dates of upcoming concerts and all other information which will connect artist and audiences.

For the digipak, I want the main colours to be blue and red. On the front page we will see a close up photo of the band in red and blue lightening. Inside there will be a picture of these to colours mixing together like a splash representing the emotions a customer will experience after listening to this CD. On the back there will be all production names and the same picture of the group as in the front, but where they are laughing. 

Campaign for second music video idea

This artist is more romantic so I want to show this on his website. There will be a lot of pictures of him online as I want him to target mainly females. There are also probably would be lyrics of his song as there is meaning in them. Like on the others artist's websites, there are going to be links to all his social media profiles, dates of upcoming tours and concerts and some sort of player so the viewer could listen to his latest album on his website. I want the website to be in green colours, so it would be pleasant to use it.

This is the closest example I have found.

The digipak I also want to make in blue-green colours. On the front page I want to show the artist sitting on the chair with guitar. There will be also his name and title of the album. This is a debut album so his face should be clearly seen. The inside will be in the same colours, but there also will be lyrics to one or two songs. At the back there will be a list with all songs which are inside and empty room with leaning on the wall guitar.

Campaign for first music video idea

I want to create a sad and even depressing star image of the artist so both website and digipak would be in dark grey colours. This is one of his first albums and I want people to remember him, so there would be a close up picture of his face on it.
The closest examples to what I want to make for this particular artist would be:

This one would be closer by the atmosphere it creates:

And this one would be very similar to what I want:

On the website there should be links to all his social media profiles to create a link between the artist and his audience, dates of upcoming events related to the artist, information about the artist himself, there should be also an opportunity to listen to his songs straightaway on the website. By showing all this information the website will promote the artist and all related products to him. However, I want to leave some mystery, so there won't be any biography available in information sector.

The digipack would be made in the same theme as the website and therefore the music video. It would probably be very simple in black and white colours. On the front we will again see the face of the artist and his name written in bold, inside it would be plain black or with some grey stains. On the back of it, the colour will be the same as in inside, but there will be a list of songs written in white and production names. The CD  itself would be mate black with the name of the artist on it.

Third idea for music video

For the third idea a chose this song:

This song is much more popular then the previous ones, but I was inspired by it so decided to use it here.
I want to show the group itself, how they are playing in the studio. All the video clip would be in dark colours: red and black are the main ones.
The group would play on the black background with red and blue lightening. At first we won't see their faces as at the beginning the lighting will be from the back, so we will see just their silhouettes.

There would be 2 more timelines: how the band sitting at the tables, drinking beer and playing cards. This scene will break 180 degree rule as the camera would constantly go around this table showing all members. At one point in this scene we start to see that there is a conflict happening and singer stands up and leaves the room.

The third scene would be how the singer who left the room in the previous scene walks alone in the black hood on empty street.

The last shot will be the the same studio with the group, but the band playing without the artist.

Second idea for music video

The second idea I have is very different to the previous one by genre and the star image it creates.
I chose a song by Joshua Hyslop :

This artist is more romantic and targets different audience.
The music video is set in the studio/ cafe where he is performing his song.
The artist will be young, attractive man.
At first, we see the artist sitting alone playing guitar and singing.

Then, we start to see shots of a girl sitting somewhere near at the table and listening to him. She smiles at him, flirting. We can then also see how the artist notices her and starts to flirt with her too. This scene reminds me on one scene from Glee, but less dramatic then there.

After that flirting communication, between the shots of the singer, we see their's future, how they spending happily time together.