Test Shots - Main Characters.

Main Characters in our story line:

Sarah: Connie Ball.

John: Kieran Hanks-McComas. 

I took pictures of the two main characters in our storyline to show who the actors are, and their relationship.

It is important that the actors get on with each other during the shoot because our story line requires the actors to trust each other and be comfortable with each other. We are quite lucky as our actors are in a relationship personally and acting out the story in our music video should not be too hard for them. 

Digipack Analysis

Alesana is an American rock band, which combines different subgenres from hardcore, metalcore to screamo. The album I'm describing above is their 5th album. Two members of the band started writing short stories and the songs for the albums are being written around them - this was for the last two albums.
"The Emptiness" and "A Place Where the Sun is Silent" are both of the albums built around the story.
It's not only the digipack that follows the story but also the website & the music videos support and follow the theme of the album itself.

This task has helped me to see what I need for my Digipack when I create it and how can I make it creative and interesting & desirable to the audience. This is important because I need to make sure I can make it desirable enough so that they buy the album in a shop instead of downloading it off of Internet in mp3 form. 

Video Diary - 26/10/2012

Animatic For Music Video

I've created the Animatic for our Storyboard. Animatic is a motion version of the storyboard to present your final idea & the concept for the video in more visual form. The animatic, just like the storyboard is going to be my guide to show me what shots do I need and how is it going to look like. It's very probable that my final video will be a lot different to my storyboard and animatic but the point is to learn new skills and improve throughout the work.

Idea Development.

Today we had a group meeting and we discussed in detail all the aspects of our story: the character types, the story types, the genre, the plot and structure of the video and song. We worked out the sections of the song and planned out what happens during the verses and choruses. 

My contribution included helping to specify the genre of the music video we are going to make & deciding on some of the features in the structure of the video & character types. 

Genre & Image.

Genre Conventions & Image on Prezi

Website Analysis

This is a case study of a website that I've decided to analyse and use as one of my influences when Adam and I are going to make a website for our artist. Example does a similiar type of music as Pryce Oliver and his work is all about entertainment, and making sure people have a good time. His videos are creative and always sending a message in some way. This how we are going to promote our artist - creative, meaningful, entertainment, simple & fun.

Initial Lyrics Timecode.

This is our initial idea for our music video. We have worked out what kind of shots would fit in with each section of the song, and with what lyrics. This is what we have produced.

0:00 -0:01 – close up on the main character’s eyes opening. First “Excess”

0:01 – 0:07 –establishing shot of the room, close up on a full ashtray, broken bottles, clothes everywhere.

0:07 – 0:08 – second “Excess”, close up on the girlfriend mouthing Excess, blowing out smoke in a white shirt, smudged make up.

0:08 -0:15 –close ups two-shot of the couple sitting next to each other, looking at each other, lovingly.

0:15 -0:16 – third “Excess” extreme close up of them squeezing each other’s hands “in passion”.

0:16 -0:18 – close up on his face, extreme close up zoom in shot on his eye, “wide open”,

0:18 -0:22 –shots of the fight from the night before, close ups on bottles being smashed to pieces, possible slow-motion

0:22 -0:23 –fourth “Excess” they let go of each other’s hands,

0:23 -0:31 –two shot of them leaving the bed/floor in separate directions/ sides,  a close up of her face wiping tears away, “evil” smile,

0:31 -0:32 –he leaves, door shuts

0:32 -0:46 – “Oh well, I’ve been trying my best, and now I’ve had some success” – him walking down the streets, singing to the camera, few establishing shots, intercutting with him singing

0:46 – 0:52 – “It’s time to try some excess, a little bit of excess” cuts to the girl pulling on stockings & getting ready to go out, putting make up etc

0:52 -1:03 –“ It’s time to try some excess, a little bit of excess” -him still singing, walking into the club (shot of him walking in from outside), sitting down/ordering a shot.

1:03 -1:18 –shots of her walking out of the flat, walking into the same club, ordering a drink, club full of people, they dance, she meets her friends, he meets his, both dance on the dancefloor. (slowmo?)

1:18-1:22 – “Running around and around like a rollercoaster” – blurry camera, p.o.v., as if the whole club was spinning, drug use/alcohol effect.

1:22 -1:25 – he notices the girl, flirting with some other guy

1:25- 1:30 –“Nothing to lose, so excited as we go faster” he walks over, pushes them apart, starts a fight with the other man.

1:30 -1:47 – they fight, possible slow motion, close ups, on the girl the people, they get kicked out, he’s all beaten up, heading home.

1:47-2:01–music speeds up, girl dances, and flirts with guys intercuts with the guy going back home, blurry camera, shaky (drunk & on drugs), shuts the door,

2:01 -2:03 –close up on her face in the club, looks confused/lost

2:03 -2:10 –she comes back, looks all guilty, he sits on the bed, looks up (close up) – quite long shots, of them looking at each other (her guilty & apologising), him all angry?

2:10 -2:17 – arguments ends in kissing, making up, passionate kissing, he throws her on the bed, etc

2:17-2:18 – darkness/blank shot, symbolising end of the day, end of an old chapter,

2:18 – 2:33- "Oh well, I’ve been trying my best, and now I’ve had some success”, morning after both on the bed, facing each other, looking happy, morning light, bright, cheerful, fresh feel.

2:33 –2:38 –“It’s time to try some excess a little bit of excess” –they have breakfast together across a table, talk, laugh etc (good relationship, happiness, no problems)

2:38 -2:46 –“It’s time to try some excess, a little bit of excess” –he goes out, kisses her goodbye, she sits on a sofa, reading a book, close ups, shot of him walking out the door.

2:46 -2:55 –she throws the book away, puts on the stockings, make up, winks at the camera as “Excess” comes on

2:55 -3:10 –she walks down the street, typing on the phone, walks past him in a café, he’s writing, walks out, follows her, she sees him, they fight, he walks away

3:10 – 3:26 –he goes back to the flat, goes mental, packs a suitcase with her clothes, gets a bottle of Jack, gets drunk, image gets shaky. Excess comes on everything goes black,

3:26 -3:34 – she walks in, he’s on the floor, passed out, her suitcase’s by the door, she takes it, winks at the camera again and leaves. Door shuts. THE END.

Final Idea Brainstorm!

We brainstorm our individual ideas together and threw some ideas in suggested by other students, and we created a mind map based upon it as we did in our notebooks when discussing this. We listened to the song many times, thinking of different themes & different settings we could include in the video and this is what we came up with. We will post our final idea template soon. This will help us to narrow down what our actual final idea will be and what we need to include for our narrative & our music video needs to include.

Target Audience - Social Networking

We are lucky enough to have an artist with a quite established status in the local music industry. Pryce Oliver already has his own website and facebook profile, twitter account, soundclound account & a youtube account. He has a reasonably sized fanbase. Also with increasing interest in Dance genre by the public, there is a great potential for his music to become well-known in a short period of time.

I collected some screen captures from his existing accounts
to get an idea of what the target audience may be. By that, I mean,
what age group is his music targeting and what kind of an audience listens to dance music?

Instantly we can see that the age group most interested in this kind of music & our artists are adults aged from 25-34 years old. This is perfect because our initial ideas for the music video for one of his songs are touching quite serious, grown up subjects such as jealous, relationships, betrayal and drug and alcohol use. This information will help us narrow down what we want to include in our music video and what kind of scenes, themes and concepts can we include so that we target the above type of audience successfully.

References & Inspirations: Intertextual References.

I watched Trouble by Leona Lewis and I found some references and inspirations I could use as an influence in our project. I took some screen captures and annotated them in a form of a video. This will help me to narrow down what kind of shots I'd like in our video to suit our story as it's similar to the one in Leona Lewis's video.

Music Video Analysis.

These are two of my music video analysis. I've done them in two different ways as at first I thought stills would be easier but I decided after a while that a video version would be simpler to do. This analysis of Music Videos would help me get an idea of the different types of music videos, what they must include, what is the importantce of the relationship between the music and the visuals and the lyrics and the visuals as well as symbolism and how are different techniques used including: voyeurism, intertextuality or hyper-reality. I also will see how different videos break different conventions of music videos of their genre.