Research & Planning: Digital Technology Targets

In order to create the effects I want in my music video, I need to develop my skills with the digital technology which I have assessed through producing three targets for myself. This week I aim to:

• Achieve the split screen effect using Adobe Premiere.
• Create an over saturated effect with colour filters also using Adobe Premiere.
• Learn about the different effects layers can create in Adobe Photoshop.

Research & Planning: Magazine Advert Analysis

 Due to the fact that folk music generally is quite niche, i've found it quite difficult to find examples of magazine adverts showcasing it. However, through analysing those that I have managed to find (and those which are more mainstream that I would have liked them to be) I've found that the genre uses both illustrations and photographs as the main image. I would like to experiment with using illustrations or photographs for my advert and get audience feedback for which would be most suitable.

As for the text, as with the digipak, it almost always is in italics and has that handwritten feel to it. The name of the band/ artist is the largest text on the image. 

Research & Planning: Print Research

From my research into similar artists' digipaks I've discovered that folk artists tend to either go one which is illustrated or one including a shot of something natural.

This digipak is quite redundant as there is a direct correlation between the title and the album artwork. However the use of illustration and the scribbled technique makes it quite quirky.

 

Here a simple shot has been used, however I  think it's really effective I particularly like the contrast of the black and white as well as the teared effect on the edges of the image. It also shows how folk artists use scenic images as well illustrations in their album artwork.

Again here is an example of an illustrated design. Something I've found with folk bands is that they don't tend to use an image of the artist as the front cover, it's used here but only as an illustration.

Due to the fact that there is a crossover now between the folk and indie genres, many folk artists have chosen to stylize their album artwork like that of other indie music. Here the artist has tried to present an image that cohers to the auteur theory (not being influenced by the mainstream and having individual ideas from their creativity alone) however the once niche indie scene has grown significantly in popularity and images like these can be seen anywhere making them much like Adorno's theory in which popular music products are characterised by standardisation.

I would like my own print production to have a vintage effect and have found some useful information on a photoshop tutorial website.

Research & Planning: Costume Design

From our ideas and rough sketches, Jess came up with this:

Research & Planning: Reflection On Time Management

This week Jess and I have been hard at work producing our storyboard. We had originally planned to get it finished for today however we were unable to do so and will have to run into next week. This will then mean we have less time to turn the storyboard into an animatic next week or if we are then unable to get that finished we will have to modify our calender.

Research & Planning: Creativity

For this past week I've been focused on developing my creativity. Sir Ken Robinson said that we are all born with creativity and it is then society and focused schooling that then hinders it. He says that we are taught to become scared to make mistakes and subsequently too scared to be creative. However I don't agree with some of what he says, I think it's through our interaction with the world that inspires our creativity. 

Over the past few days I've been thinking and drafting up some ideas for my print production; below are some examples.

I got the inspiration for these on a walk home one day, where I properly looked at my surroundings. Through my research into other folk artists' albums I've noticed that many are illustrated, like that of Willy Mason, so I decided to give it a go myself. 

The illustration on Willy Mason's front cover has a scribbled effect, and I tried to recreate this by using a technique a friend told me about. Using a fine liner pen, I scribbed my design on paper before outlining it by dabbing a wet paintbrush over the image creating this washed out effect.

My partner and I have also got to work drafting out some ideas for costumes, we took inspiration from those that we had seen in The Wickerman, as well as the other music videos we had looked into. 

Research & Planning: Feedback From Target Audience

Feedback From Pitch
After presenting our pitch to our classmates we received anonymous feedback on several aspects of our concept. As a whole the audience thought the suitability for the target audience was good, saying it was "realistic", "well researched" and "ideal." They also thought our idea was original, saying it sounds "interesting", "different" and "entropic", however there were a few comments that said our concept sounds too similar to Mumford & Sons, which I disagree with as they are a mainstream band whereas ours is more niche and includes much darker themes. I do understand though how our location could seem too similar but that, I think, is inevitable. 


There were quite a few comments on the difficulty of our filming in the woods, saying how with poor weather conditions the wood could become muddy. This we know is a problem and would be with anyone filming outdoors, we'll just hope that the weather is on our side. We'll also have to be careful with any safety hazards as there are many places in the woods where someone could fall or trip regardless of weather conditions. Another technical aspect that was unanimously critiqued was the difficulty the prospect of hanging people was. Originally we had hoped to have long shots where you would see several hung people in the wood, however after talking through the options with several people we've decided to just include very tight, specific shots where you'll never see their whole body at one time. This will mean the actor can stand on a chair, when we need their head in shot, or use their arms to hang from the tree when it's only their feet needed in the shot. 


The audience was also asked whether they thought the idea sounded realistic - did it sound like a music video? A few people said the lighting would be hard to achieve with the college cameras, but we intend to create the right lighting in post production using editing techniques. Someone also said that we need to include more close-ups of the musician, which we agree with and have taken on board.  

 Feedback From Focus Group

To get feedback for our music video plans so far from our target audience, Jess and I created a Facebook note including the finalised concept, the song and a list of possible costumes and locations we could use. At the bottom of the note we asked five questions that could tell us whether we were on track and creating something relevant to the target audience as well as any improvements that could be made. The questions were:

1. Would you recognise this as a folk genre music video? Why/ why not?
2. Do you feel that this video targets your age range? How/ why?
3. Does this sound like an authentic video that would be broadcast on TV? Why/ why not?
4. Would you watch it? Why/ why not?
5. How would you improve it?

We then tagged several typical audience members in order to get a relevant response.

The feedback was very positive towards our choice of setting and appearance of our video and the audience could identify the genre of the video easily due to the stereotypical conventions we included (e.g. the woodland setting) meaning the genre, as Chris noted, could be deduced even without the music.

Two of the three suggested that we shouldn't have a specific age range to target and that it should be more generalised, however Jack, the youngest of the three suggested that people his age would be more interested in the mainstream. This has led Jess and I to think that we should be aiming our video at a more mature audience.

Chris also suggested that we should lose some of the repetition of the untying of ropes unless we can find different ways of doing it. This comment will prove very useful when filming and editing as we will now be more aware of the interest in each shot and will help our video become less redundant.

Research & Planning: Investigating Chosen Genre (unfinished)

The genre of music my partner and I have chosen to explore is folk. Being a folk fan myself I already had a vague idea of the type of song I wanted, I also knew where to look for key artists and concepts behind the genre.

Mumford & Sons: Winter Winds



E.g. Cheesy slow motion



Although this artist is much more mainstream than our chosen one, OTT cheesy long shots of the band in slow motion being an example of something we wouldn't want to recreate, there are a couple of ideas and shot types in the video that we want to take on board. I love the use of setting such as where the main character is walking through the long grass with a low angle shot and the strands of grass, unfocused and brushing the camera lens, making an effective shot.

Bon Iver: The Wolves Act 1 & 2

This artist is much more niche than the one described above, but much darker than the artist we have chosen. The video is based on nature with parts of the video having a Blair Witch Project feel to it. I particularly like the shots of trees and the fast paced cutting at the end of the video.
I've also found that Folk can play a big part in the atmosphere of a film, for example, The Wickerman. Originally filmed in 1973 The Wickerman uses folk as a juxtoposition; the happy track teamed with the singing & dancing villagers; their joyous faces against the slow, painful death of an innocent man. This effect is something my partner and I would like to attempt to portray in our music video; the use of a happy mise-en-scene over a sinister event.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEOQqnHMSMc

Research & Planning: The Pitch

The Pitch

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Research & Planning: Final Concept

This Young Boy

Finalised Concept

Main character pushes his bike up the path (no music). Arriving at the top of Red Hill Lane, he looks around. Pan shot of landscape around lane (POV). He climbs on his bike and, kicking off, the music starts. From different points of view, we watch him cycle down the lane. As he nears the railway bridge, the lighting begins to shift and become more surreal. As he rides beneath the railway bridge, the image is blown out with light, and we lose visuals.

He is suddenly in woods, the lighting dark, but with concentrated colour. He looks around. Canted angles, circling tree shots, more POV. He begins to walk the path, still singing. He halts. There is something dark and out of focus behind him. Shift focus: from main character, to body, back to him, to the foreground, where rungs of ladder can be seen. He calmly reaches his hand towards the ladder without looking at it. He turns, the ladder tucked under his arm, and approaches the person. He props the ladder against the tree beside the body and begins to climb. Close up of hands undoing the knot on the branch. See the rope slip away (slow motion). POV of looking down over the branch, see the body splayed on the ground. Low angle shot looking back up at the main character in the tree who begins to climb down. Back to the first high angle shot of him leaving the ladder. Picks up body and props it on its feet. Close up of face, eyes opening suddenly. The revived person follows at a distance as the main character picks up his ladder, sticks it under his arm and walks away.

Switch to storyline 2. Lighting is bright and warm. Establishing shot of rolling countryside taken from inside a car (Note: when shots are taken from inside a car, this is a family holiday video – handheld shots). Also shots of the countryside around. See car in background. Sound of song is lower. Radio turned up and sound returns to full volume. Long shot of location, car goes by, zoom in on a tree.

When zoomed out, we are back in the wooded location. Side shot of main character leading a procession of about 4 dead people. Time begins to move faster, and in a series of faster shots, we see repetitive actions of him placing his ladder against various trees, his hands picking at knots, the bodies dropping. From a low angle, only the newest dropped body is seen, and the feet of others in the background. The main character leans into the shot and helps the new person to their feet. As they rise together, the camera follows until, at normal height, the camera is looking across a crowd of people.

The bridge begins. The main character is alone in the centre of a clearing. The camera circles him. As he looks around, the dead emerge from the trees. This is intercut with a short fragments of the continuing storyline 2, shots of the car turning into an estate, shots of inside the car with the family laughing. Then back to the main storyline. People continue to emerge. This continues in this manner until they, at a distance, surround him and begin to slowly dance around him, circling. The camera spins from the centre of this, flashing past each face.

They stop, and the circle parts. The main character’s eyes fall on something out of shot and, the crowd of the dead split into two equal ranks on each side, they follow him, though the camera angles deny the viewer of what he is seeing, showing him approaching the camera from a high angle. Finally a reverse shot is provided, a close up of dangling feet. There’s a shot back of the main character, whose eyes travel up the body. In splitscreen, he looks at the face – it is a dead version of himself. He steps backwards, out of shot. There are still interrupting shots of storyline two. Slowly, he climbs his ladder. As there’s another close up of his hands on the knot, and it releases slowly.

As it does so, there’s a final sequence of the car, turning a corner, and travelling down a short road. Jumping to inside the car as it approaches the bridge, we see the main character on his bike, going underneath the other side of the bridge. It cuts back to the body falling the final foot to the ground as faint sound of the car brakes screeching is heard. A high angle POV from the branch looks down at the body, and the crowd of dead watch. From ground level, we see the dead version of the main character’s head and shoulders. A match-on-action, we then see the boy in the clothes he wore at the start of the video, lying in a similar position on concrete, the wheel of his bike spinning in the foreground. In the last moments, after lying still as if dead, he opens his eyes.

Research & Planning: Time Management

The Outlook Web App that students use to communicate with both teachers and eachother also has a calender feature, allowing me efficiently organise any outstanding tasks I may have. The calender also has the option to be shared meaning, so long as I know their email, I can add anyone to my calender so they can view and add to it too. This is perfect for organising our team and will prove especially useful in the future when we need to organise filming.

This is what we hope to achieve through the rest of November:

And December:

We also completed a more thorough plan in Word:



Research & Planning: Tempo

I chose to analyse how the tempo of a song affects the amount of shots in a music video to help with the production of my own.



Firstly I looked at indie band Bloc Party and their song "Helicopter." The song has a fast tempo which is amplified in the amount of shots - in the first minute there were 107 cuts making it have an average of two shots per second.



The number of shots in a folk video however are quite the opposite. Laura Marling's "New Romantic" has a much slower tempo, which the shot types cohere to in their long lengths and stillness. I counted 14 shots in one minute of the video meaning there was an average of a shot every 2.5 seconds.

However the folk song my partner and I have chosen is a slightly more upbeat folk song and so  there should be on average a shot per second. This is because our video will contain both stop motion shots and a dramatic increase of shots at the crecendo of the video as well as the slow, scenic shots dotted throughout the video.

Both examples of how the amount of shots in a video reflects the tempo cohere to Goodwin's theory of a music video matching the lyrics to the visuals.

 Though our animatic only contains a rough idea of the shots and timing , this further research has helped me understand where it's neccessary for us to take our time in the video and where we can afford or it would look more effective to speed up. The establishing shots of the video are an example of where it's neccessary for the video to have a slow editing pace, allowing both the character and the audience to take in the surroundings not only so we understand the scene but also to emphasize the scenic environment which is common in folk videos. As the tempo of the track increases, so will the editing and this will also gradually incorporate the second narrative of the car journey. This second storyline with be flickered in before being shown fully, as though the first narrative was overwriting the second on a home video camera.