Storyboards

I started looking at the song 'wait' and making my own interpritations of what the song means to me. I had a basic storyline, where the boy is waiting for the girl to come to him, and built on that to work out the different stages of the video.

The video starts with the boy getting ready and continues with him waiting around different location in maidenhead before cooking her dinners. She eventually arrives and they both realise that spending time with each other is the most import thing.

Treatment

Aims

Our aim is to produce a Music Video for our A2 Media Studies. My music video will appeal to 15-21 year olds that are like Indie music and are fans of Youth Club for Rich Kids. The deadline for the production of the music video is Christmas. I would like the music video to be exciting and high tempo like the song. I would like the viewer to become a fan of the band as well as forming a relationship with Harry who will be staring in the video and is also in the band. I would like our audience to be able to associate themselves with the music video and feel as if they are interacting with the characters on screen. I will do this through the use of a central character that they can relate to and by creating enigmas for them to solve.

Structure

The main character gets up straight away to prepare for his meal with his girlfriend, he is putting maximum effort in to impress her. Meanwhile his girlfriend is having a lie-in and taking her time thinking she has all the time in the world. He waits and waits for her to see him and in the meantime the meals he was cooking did not meet the grade. When she eventually arrives they are left to eat a pot noodle together and they can both see the funny side.

Style and Technical Features

An initial influence for my music video is that of Viva Brother in which their video depicts aspects of Slough, I will include famous landmarks and locations around maidenhead where the band have performed and visited. It also bears similarities with ‘Cookie Jar’ by Gym Class Heroes where only the lead singer is present onset of the video. Only Harry, the guitarist, will feature within the video.

Location

The location for filming will start at the boys house as well as the girlfriends. The outdoor shots will take place in Maidenhead city centre, Ockwells Park, Cox Green School and Furze Platt.

JT

Choice of Song

I have selected a song called "Wait" by Youth Club for Яich Kids. This song was first heard at the Maidenhead Battle of the Bands Final and has gone on to have over three-hundred views on YouTube since it was uploaded. I feel that the song has a feel-good factor and that making a music video for it will be both entertaining and exciting. I hope to incorporate some live footage within the video as I feel their performances bring smiles onto the faces of everyone present and I would like to capture this mood.

JT

Youth Club for Rich Kids

Youth Club for Яich Kids are a relatively new indie band but have had instant popularity in the local area gaining a large fan base due to their catchy lyrics and enthusiastic performances. All the band members come from the Cox Green area of Maidenhead and have attended Cox Green School. The school was the location of their first ever live gig at "The Cox Green Rock Concert", a night which saw numerous bands from the school perform. A week later came the Maidenhead Carnival Battle of the Bands Competition. Around eighty people were in attendance for the first heat. This support quickly grew and by the semi-finals three hundred people turned out to support the bands, the majority of these supporting Youth Club for Яich Kids themselves. The band went on to achieve the highest number of votes cast for any one group in the history of the competition. Youth Club finally finished second in the hotly contested competition. Recently the band performed at "The Firestation" in Windsor, their first gig outside of Maidenhead. The gig went really well resulting in them being asked back to perform again in December.

JT

Target Audience (Demographics)

Demographics is a way of looking at a population to help with marketing and sociology. It studies aspects such as; gender, age, race, employment status, disabilities and location. I would like my music video to appeal to both male and female audiences and students from the age of fifteen to twenty one.

 I hope to incorporate a feel-good vibe around the song and display Maidenhead, Berkshire in a good light.I feel it is important to incorporate the band's home town in a way that Viva Brother, from Slough have in some of their music videos. Viva Brother are an up and coming indie band who have performed at both the Reading and Leeds festivals as well as Glastonbury Festival in the summer.

JT

Target Audience (Graphs)

The first question I asked to my target audience was 'who is your favourite artist?' Two Door Cinema Club were the most popular answer with seven people naming them as their favourite. The results show a wide range of genres and artists from rap music to female pop stars. Surprisingly Foals only recieved one vote despite having a similar sound to that of Two Door Cinema Club. I put this down to Foals being less mainstream than Two Door Cinema Club and that not everyone that I asked were currently indie fans.

As a result of my research into people's favourite artists I asked the same subjects which musical genre they would class as their favourite. The indie genre came out as the overall winner, however rap and dance music were also liked by the group. I will use the information gained from this market research in order to help me to decide on the best genre of music to choose to make a music video for.









JT

Target Audience (Interviews 2)

I then continued to interview sixth form students at Cox Green School until I had twenty five students to analyse. I then put the findings into a spreadsheet and made graphs to allow me to visualise my findings. The twenty five students were selected at random.

Here is another one of my interviewees Ollie Jarvis.

JT

Target Audience (Interviews)

I started my research by interviewing students at my school of a similar age to myself as they are my target audience and easily accessible to me. I felt that interviewing people belonging to my target audience, mostly teenagers, would benefit me as it would give me an insight into their likes and dislikes, both musically and visually.

Here is one of the interviewees Daniel Hogg.

JT

Artist Research (3)

Marron 5 are an American Pop-Rock band from Los Angeles. The band were all good friends at high school and formed a band called Kara’s Flowers, releasing an album in 1998. This album was not very successful and they put the band on hold to carry out other careers away from the music industry. They reformed in 2002 with the new name of Maroon 5. The band are still going strong in 2011 with seven Grammy awards to their name.

JT

Artist Research (2)

Gym Class Heroes are a hip-hop band from New York USA. They formed when band member Travie McCoy met Matt McGinley in high school, they formed a friendship born out of their shared hatred for gym class, hence the name of their band.
‘Cupid's Chokehold’ was released in 2005, only band member Travie McCoy appears within its video. I like the way that only one of the band members is present in the video because it enables the audience to feel like they know him personally, this helps to create a bond between the audience and the band member's  persona.

JT

Artist Research

Having looked at different musical genres I thought it would be beneficial to look deeper into some acts that I was personally interested in. I chose to look at Rizzle Kicks who are a rapping duo from Brighton. They released their first single in May 2011 so are relatively new to the mainstream music industry.
Both Jordan and Harley met whilst studying at the London School for Performing Arts and Technology commonly known as The Brit School. In their original music videos they got their friends to film them rapping on low budget cameras rented from the college. They have a 1980's hip-hop sound to them and use witty lyrics in order to captivate the audience. Their big break came when they were asked to make a song with X-Factor finalist Olly Murs which reached number one in the UK singles chart.  

JT

Genre Research (3)

Finally I chose to analyse the hugely popular genre of pop music. The origin of pop music comes from the late 1920’s when pop was used to express music which had mass appeal.

Beat Music is a sub-genre of pop and was used to describe bands such as The Rolling Stones and ABBA. Merseybeat was used to put bands from Liverpool into their own category.

The early 1980’s saw pop music move away from the traditional bands and towards acts like Michael Jackson, Madonna and Prince.

The pop industry today is saturated with acts such as Lady Gaga and Rihanna.

JT

Genre Research (2)

Secondly came the genre of rap. Rapping originated from African American’s English dialect in the 1960’s. This use of the English language then grew in popularity and its origins lead to the hip-hop and reggae music heard in modern day.

The earliest influence for rapping came from The Memphis Jug Band who played with instruments as well as washing boards, kazoo’s and jugs. Their African origin inspired their native sound with fast paced lyrics which kept the audience amazed.

The golden-age for rap and hip hop was the 1980-90’s with the success of famous rappers such as  Dr Dre, LL Cool J and The Beastie Boys. There were also different genres within the time, with some artists specialising in the children's party industry, such as Jive Bunny and others with so called "sex-raps".

In the UK existing rap artists such as Example and Tinie Tempah  are moving away from their previous hip-hop backgrounds and  moving to more popular, mainstream sound, realising that the rap game is a niche market.


JT

Genre Research

After choosing my influential music videos I decided to analyse different musical genres. Firstly I decided to look at the genre known as Indie, I am a big fan of this music and find its history interesting.—

Also known as independent music can be broken down into many sub-genres. College Pop bands from the United States were very popular the leader of this genre being R.E.M.

Indie pop then evolved from this creating techno sounds with bands like New Order.

The turn of the 1990’s saw Britpop bands such as Blur and Oasis break into the mainstream audience.

In the present day Indie bands from the UK and US have ever increasing popularity such as the White Stripes from Detroit and UK based bands like Razorlight, The Kooks and The Arctic Monkeys.

JT

Influential Music Videos (4)

Viva Brother display Goodwin's theory that music videos have screens within screens. They do this by filming a video camera, which is itself, filming the band. I like the way that different camera qualities are used. This mixes up the shots and makes them more interesting. The burning shopping trolley shows the band's rebellious side. I would like to include aspects of the band member's personalities within my music video.

JT

Influential Music Videos (3)

Wiz Khalifa stars in his video ‘Black and Yellow’. The video reflects Michael Shore's beliefs that music videos include aspects of  speed, power, girls and wealth, as well as adolescent male's fantasies. I like the use of shots within the video which show the area in which the Wiz were brought up. I find the backgrounds of artists interesting and hope to capture some shots of the Maidenhead region within my music video.

JT

Influential Music Videos (2)

       Two Door Cinema Club fit into the convention of a band with a main vocalist/frontman. He is the main focus of the video and the use of close ups gives the audience the sense of personalisation with him. I like the way that the band are seen in a casual light when on the dodgems which makes them seem friendly and just like any other young person. This snap shot into their lives allows the viewer to share their sense of fun and to almost feel as if they are experiencing it alongside them. The use of wide sand dunes is abstract as no-one would usually perform in the middle of the desert. I hope to incorporate similar ideas into my music video.

JT

Influential Music Videos

Following my research into the history of music videos I looked at a series of videos which will influence me during the filming and production of my own music video. Ed Sheeran's video ties into Sven E Carlson’s believes  about standard clips. The main artist, Ed Sheeran, only makes brief appearcences within the video. This backs up the meaning of the song by focusing the listener on the words of the song. His lyrics out power his appearance and therefore become the most important thing. The whole video is filmed in black and white which again makes the viewer focus on the lyrics. The actor uses sign language to communicate the lyrics visually. This enables the lyrics to be expressed to everyone in the world, including the hearing impaired.


JT

History of Music Videos (4)

Finally I looked at Peter Gabriel's song Sledgehammer which is a great example of how stop-start  animation can be used.

The camera stays stationary whilst Peter Gabriel's face sings the lyrics, this allows objects to move around him whilst he remains static. The images on screen are literal to the lyrics being sung, for example when he says "you could have a steam train" the train appears on screen. The video fits in with Sven E Carlson's theory and is an art clip due to its more experimental sound.

JT

History of Music Videos (3)

The third historical video was taken from the film 'Showboat' staring Paul Robeson and shows the struggle of a dock man. 

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"Ol’ Man River" was a song within the film ‘Showboat’ and shows the struggle of a dock man. Robeson is not performing to an audience and looks as if he is reflecting, these shots are backed up by action clips of the job. Other locals go about their everyday life and do not react to his singing which proves it was not intended to be a performance clip. This video shows all six of the characteristics that Andrew Goodwin talks about in his theory. 

JT

History of Music Videos (2)

Secondly I looked at the hugely popular Elvis' "Hound Dog" Video featuring unusual hip movements which sent his female fans crazy.

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‘Hound Dog’ was very much a hit with Elvis’ female fans due to his exaggerated body moments and the way he broke the mould of male singers. Elvis rebelled against the flow and caused much controversy within the media which only led to his increased popularity. Previous singers in his genre did not experiment with their movements as much as Elvis did. This rebellion made him really exciting to teenagers and he became a legendary icon as a result. The television companies had so many complaints about his hip action at the time that they where forced to film his performances from the waist upwards. 

JT

History of Music Videos

After doing some reaserch into the people who analyse music videos I decided to look at some historical music videos.

Firstly I analysed Bessie Smith's song "St Louis Blues". It was released in 1929 and became the first music and film clip to be made. The artist Bessie Smith was a blues singer who made a narrative music video as the images on the screen related to the lyrics that Bessie Smith was singing. The video depicts a drunken Bessie Smith singing of her troubles at a bar. She is singing to the bar staff with no real audience other than the people taking no notice of her at the dinner tables. Lasting sixteen minutes in total the song was made into a dramatised film with Bessie Smith staring in it. Sven E Carlson would put this video in the narrative as it tells a story but does not change locations.


JT

Music Video Analysers

During my research stage I focused on three music video analysers, these being Andrew Goodwin, Michael Shore and Sven E Carlson.

Andrew Goodwin believes that every music video contains six common guidelines, these acknowledge  that:

• music videos demonstrate genre characteristics.
• there is a relationship between the music and the visuals.
• the demands of relationship between lyrics and visuals.
• the demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artists and the artist may develop motifs which reoccur their work.
• there is a frequent reference to the notion of looking, screens within screens for example looking through telescopes.
• there is often intertextual reference to films, magazines and other media forms.

Michael Shore's theory of eighteen words can be used to analyse a music video:

• 1.Recycled styles
• 2.Surface without substance
• 3.Simulated experience
• 4.Information overload
• 5.Image and style scavengers
• 6.Ambivalence
• 7.Decadents
• 8.Immediate gratification
• 9.Vanity of the moment
• 10.Image assaults and outré folks
• 11.The death of content
• 12.Anesthetization of violence through chic
• 13.Adolescent male fantasies
• 14.Speed, power, girls and wealth
• 15.Album art come to turgid life
• 16.Classical storytelling’s motifs
• 17.Soft-core pornography
• 18.Clichéd imagery.

Sven E Carlson takes a different approach believing that all music videos fall into three main categories, standard, performance and narrative/art clips:

• Standard clips consist of the active artist but also contains clips outside of the artist, for example an alter-ego portrayed as a cartoon character or figure larger than life. 
• Performance clips are when the vocalist or artist is filmed in separate locations and can either be a dance, song or instrumental performance. The performer is often materialised and then attempts to sell themselves to the audience with desirable goods that the audience would be impressed with.
• Sven also talks about narrative and art clips. Narrative clips are easy to follow as they tell a story whereas art clips are for more modern experimental sounds.     

JT

First Post

Hello, I will be running this blog in parallel with a powerpoint presentation which I have been working on entitled 'Research of Music Videos'. I will put updates onto here about my progress as well as video and audio files.
JT