Concept 1

Here is a powerpoint that our group made to present the concept we had for the song 'If You See Kay'. After the feedback session there are many things that we have changed and discussed about this idea. By making these presentations it made us really reflect on the video and what our message really was. We are all quite keen on making a narrative video rather than just a performance - we want it to be interesting and have a story behind it!

Feedback for concept 1

We did a presentation to the class talking about each one of our ideas for the music videos. This is some of the feedback we got back on concept 1 (the letter idea).

• The first question we wanted to know the answer to is has the song 'If You See Kay' got a music video? If so is it any good because you don't want there to be expectations or comparisons to a good music video if yours is not as good as the original. Luckily we did not find a music video for this song which is a great place to start as there will be no comparing it to its music video.

•  It's not a film so there is no development of characters.

We wanted the people in the video to know the person that they hand it to so that there is a storyline between each person. This would look very good because it is quite a clever concept however to pull it off in one day when we do not have a lot of locations to go to is quite tricky.

• The letter is 'amazing' it just needs developing.

Many people said this at our feedback session so it's important that we really think what could the letter be. It could be quite interestingto have a mystery behind the letter as this will lead to viewers have questions that they want answered.

• The love letter is too cliche.

This was our first idea however talking about it we realised a few things. Firstly the viewers don't know much about the characters in the video therefore they might not really care about the love letter. It isn't very interesting knowing that a love letter is gettting past one person to another- its more interesting watching a letter getting past but not knowing who its for or what it is. Also this idea of the 'love letter' might not go very well with our target audience being boys and girls (teenagers) as this really only targets girls whereas our band would want to reach out to young aspiring musicians as they are more about the 'music' instead of anything else.

• There should be mystery as to what the letter is.
• What happens to the letter? Maybe there is a journey (something is getting past on).
• The people passing it on should be linked in someway. Getting this feedback has shown us that maybe a change in song might be best.

• We are also thinking about the idea of having the process of a piece of paper - getting crumpled, getting posted, on an aeroplane etc.. instead of just past on person to person.

 This kind of clarified that this idea might not be our number 1 idea. Although we will take on board all of the feedback and develop it a bit more, we don't think that this idea is as strong as maybe our others.

Concept 2

Here is a prezi that our group created to show the idea for 'The Pipers Song'. At this stage this is probably our favourite idea and after the feedback we got we are willing to develop it further to appeal more to our target audience and to make it slightly abstract. We feel that the idea of an underwater feel is slightly different (alternative) -which goes with the star image.

Feedback Concept 2

We presented this idea to the class and wrote down the feedback that they gave us. The reason for us presenting our ideas to the class is because not only are they are target audience but they will give us ideas on how we can improve our idea and get rid of the limitations of the idea. For our pool party/underwater concept they said:

• Good idea but hard to do.

We all talk about the challenges that we would face with this music video however we really want to push ourselves. We think that we could definitely overcome the flaws with this idea. Using underwater GoPro cameras is an idea. Although the underwater bit is quite hard to film they said about location possibly being a problem but one of our group members has a pool in her garden which is only 20 minutes away from school. This is the kind of size of the pool that our group members owns. Because it is outside and by a house shows that it is a house/pool party which goes with the concept that we came up with.

• Cut the story down as it's like a long film.

We were going to have it about a couple who arrived together, had an argument, she cries and tries to get away from people but ends up gettting pushed into the pool etc.. But this storyline is quite long and there is much detail - although we were quite set on this idea we have liked the idea of it being more sereal so it doesn't have to all make complete sense. For example there could be another world underwater. Also we don't have to see her trying to get above the water and struggling it could be as soon as she falls in that the world changes and there are abstract shots etc.. As soon as she falls in the screen could turn white and she could be infront of a white background (like the Britney Spears video Everytime). We could do this if we decided to use a female singer too as it could be the singer acting as the girl.

• She could be thinking about memeories underwater (a different world)
• It sounds like quite a happy song.

We thought this at first (we could do the concept to another song) or if we wanted to work with the song we could do one of things : argue that we really wanted to contrast the happy tune to a darker message, make the video a little less heavy, or just take the deeper moments of the song and show that it isn't as happy as you first think. 'Where to run, are you there, are you there' - this shows that there is a bit of a darker message underneath the cheerful sound of the song at times.

• Make it a bit more abstract.

This piece of feedback was given to us by two people. We are now exploring this idea and the images on the collage show that the underwater part of the song could be quite sureal and completely contrast the party above water.

• Only got 3 minutes - 1 minute is promoting the band though.
• Make the performance a bit more interesting not just at the party (we wrote down many ideas for this such as - projections on water, wearing swimming stuff, blue screen with layers such as bubbles out of their mouth and hair wet - these are just rough ideas but we want to incorperate the underwater theme with the bands performance.)

 

 

• She could slip into unconsciousness underwater.

We really like this idea and after getting feedback we have realised that making the video a bit more abstract would add more interest and be less like a mini film and more like a music video. Also by it being quite weird it may appeal to this particular target audience for the song as they are bit alternative. However more to the point it will get more views as it will create some confusion and this means that people are likely to watch it again as they will want to understand it.

Concept 3

We presented our three ideas to the class to hear what they thought about each idea and we also got feedback from them whether this being strengths or weaknesses. 

Here is a powerpoint that I created showing what our ideas for the music video were. We did not develop this idea very much however I tried to develop the concept. We all liked the idea of showing the different ages yet the storyline of the video was lacking. This would work to appeal to our target audience of teenage girls - and boys.

3 individual ideas of music videos

1) ‘Island in the Sun’ by Weezer

My idea for this song is to show everything happy about being young and a teenager. There are too many negative representations of teenagers but it a great thing to be young and have the world at your feet. The videos that you see by some of the mainstream artists have alcohol and drugs in them and they are quite destructive videos yet I want to show that you don’t need alcohol, drugs and all of these ‘bad’ things in your life to have fun. Friends make you have fun! The location for this video would be a beach – either just a normal beach using no effects, or the beach is just their island. Ideally I picture this being more a holiday feel rather than an English beach because of the weather – but there are obviously limitations so maybe that could be whats so original and shows that anywhere in the world you can have fun and be with friends and get away from worries (you don't always need a holiday).

Here is a picture of a beach in a sunny country – this location is like paradise, it has blue skies. Another idea I had was starting with an English beach but then it transforms into something like the picture above. This shows that anywhere can be your paradise it just depends how you use it and what you do. I don’t think this idea would look as strong as the others as it may be more confusing but I was just thinking about what the song brought to mind.

  

Here is an image of the island. This would be going really well with the song name ‘island in the sun’ as it is exactly this. However because of the fact that not many people would be fortunate enough to go to a place like this I thought that maybe it would work better if it was less like a fantasy and more like what teenagers these days are able to do with their lives – not what they could have but can’t effort.

This is more the idea (above) as it shows an English beach which is somewhere that we could easily get to – and also this is something that teenagers can relate to. The reason I keep talking about teenagers is because this is the target audience of the band. I would have band members who are teenagers so that their target audience could relate to them but also want to aspire to be like them.

The star image I would create for the band is an image similar to boy bands in 2012 (One Direction for example). Weezer is an American alternative rock band formed in 1992, so by them being in the industry for 20 years or so I thought I would use inspiration from bands out today in 2012. I feel that although their song is very different to One Direction, I think they could send the same message as One Direction has of youth. I would have band members who are 17-20 years old. Their target audience would be girls because of their image, and boys more because of their talent but also the fact that boys will be able to relate to them.
On this beach I would have the band members (4 of them) and 4 girls with them. They would each be having a romance. All of the romances would be serious, but at the same time playful so that you could see their sense of humours. There would be shots of them arriving in two different cars – having the music really loud coming out the car (this would be the Weezer song so we would alter the sound on it so that it sounds like it is a diegetic sound). They would all unpack the car then head to the beach. They would play in the sea – flicking water at eachother, all jumping in having a laugh – one couple would be pushing eachother under the water. They would bury one of the band members, they would play volleyball, they would all have big jumpers and towels for after the sea so that they all hug eachother, there would be a BBQ that the boys sort out, the girls would chat to eachother whilst the boys sort out the BBQ, volleyball etc.. I have quite a few ideas of how we would show the couples (single shots of each couple doing something alone together - like throwing stones in the sea etc.) and friends all having fun. It would be a playful video that everyone who watched it would smile. I got photos off of the internet and made a collage (below) of some images of what I’d like it to look like – you can get the feel for the video by looking at this.

There would be a performance side of the video when the band sit all together on the beach by the sea with their guitars playing and singing. This shows their passion for music as well as them being normal guys. There would be close up shots so that every member of the band was seen.

2) ‘Speechless’ by Hudson Taylor

I feel that this song is about a guy who is trying to express his feelings about the girl he loves (whether that his girlfriend or a girl who doesn’t know it yet) but he is finding it hard to talk about his feelings. Whenever this girl comes into his head he gets speechless and can’t quite tell her how he feels – although he wants to.

‘It's just too good to put in words
If I could I'd take a lesson
In how to say you mean the world’

The star image of this band is indie folk music. They are just normal boys who enjoy creating music. They are both talented musicians as they play the guitar – this shows that its not all about image to them but about the music. By them being young ‘good looking’ boys this appeals to young girls, but the fact that they have a rawness, and play the guitar, and seem to be like ordinary boys makes them appeal to boys too. They have a facebook page which shows them as normal guys who have a laugh.. This photo below shows one of the members of the original band- he uploaded this to their facebook page showing that they are capable of taking the piss out of themselves (we see their sense of humour which not many artists do). This is a quality I would definitely want in the video. I would turn keep this band as a two piece band - which they were originally (known as Harry and Alfie). The reason for this is because usually two piece bands don't work but the fact that they did start off like this I would like to show this.

The performance element of this song would be the boys playing guitar and singing walking along in the street. They would walk into a sandwich shop and grab a sandwich showing that they do everything singing and playing as it's the only way that they can really communicate (at the moment anyway).  They would laugh with eachother and go to different locations, I also like the idea of also having the two boys playing guitar in white t-shirts against a white background. I think it would be simple yet effective and look quite different (this goes with their indie star image too). However I feel that the walking along the street might look a bit better as it goes with their star image a bit better as it is quite random, yet down to earth (no gimmics). I would do really close up shots of their playing the guitar to show the talent. Also of their faces - this appeals to the female audience as it is alot about what they look like that they are so popular. When I was looking up images for this video I found some really nice black and white images and I was debating doing the whole thing in black and white - it would be quite romantic but the time limit makes it quite hard to be able to create this in one day sadly.

The narrative idea I had for this song was to have a boy putting up post-it notes, writing on walls, writing in the sand, turn road signs so that they are going in the direction he wants the girl to go. She will follow these signs. Until she gets to a field – the lighting is dark as it has taken her hours to get to this point. As she walks in the field there is one last arrow under some trees. When she gets there theres fairylights up leading her to a stump of the tree, on which an iPod is sitting. She puts the iPod on and she can hear the song ‘I’m Speechless’ getting played. We can show this by having the sound go into diegetic.

A video that uses the idea of arrows is one by Justin Beiber - this was the only video that I came across when looking at other videos. His video is very different to the one I created because the narrative on mine is the main part of the video. It is also a different end message and be down in a more stylised way. I want a sophisticated look that is romantic rather than a teen cute one. Here is a print screen from that video.

3)

Emeli Sande - River

The idea I have for this song is about a man who is running. He has to run over/through many obstacles. His clothes are covered by the end of the video by mud, water and other things. Slow motion is used in parts of the video. He runs through crowds of people and is constantly looking behind his shoulder. Its unclear to the audience what he is running away from. There is a dream like feel to the video. Idon’t feel like themessage of why he is running has to be clear as there can be some unanswered questions which would make people want to watch it again. The performance side of the song would be a girl playing a grand piano on top of a hill. It would be very picturesque.





The star image of Emeli Sande is that she is all about music and its about her voice – not the fact that she is sex symbol because she is not. She is talented as she writes her own song and plays the piano. I would show this in my video as having my artist playing the piano and singing into the camera. I think the fact that it is in a picturesque location shows how beautiful she is really. It also adds an intensity to the lyrics. Right until the very end we think that the running guy is going to run to her but then realise that actually he is.



Literal videos and how this relates to Andrew Goodwin’s theory

In class we made a literal video. We decided to use the song Toxic by Britney Spears. What we had to do was take the original video but replace the real lyrics with our own lyrics that said things that we saw – it was literally what was happening in the video. For example if someone was taking off his shoes you’d replace the lyrics with ‘I take off my shoes’. It was very fun and it gave us the opportunity to be creative, funny and it also shows a comic side or a different side to every video that you make a video for. An example of this is James Blunts Bad Day song as it is quite a depressing, sad song but the literal video is very comical because it is simple yet all of the audience completely understand it. Here underneath I have print screened the official Britney Spears video and added the captions of the literal writing that we created for it.

With these three shots below you get to see how the camera shots really work. This was interesting as I may not have noticed this if I was just watching the video at normal speed and not analysing every bit. You see that the camera is at the same place, the lighting is the same warm golden tone. This is actually a very simple shot type but because of the use of editing it looks more complicated than this.

Andrew Goodwin identifies that there are 5 key aspects of music videos that audiences look out for. These are:

• Thought beats – Seeing the sound (firstly the chorus/verses, but also the artists sound). Songs can be stories with the artist telling this story and the audience listening to them.
• Narrative and Performance  - music videos should be able to be repeated. They shouldn’t be like common narratives. The narrative and performance should go together as this makes it easier to watch and easier for the audience to understand the artist/s.
• The Star Image
•  Relation of Visuals to Song
• Technical Aspects of Music Video