Storyboard #1

Here is the first storyboard attempt up to 1:40minutes.

Timeline attempt

We started to create a timeline for our video, but then realized that it doesnt make so much sense for our kind of music video as the shots are relatively long and its not about the cutting and pace, it's more about the actual visuals in the picture! So therefore this we stoped making a timeline and started straight away with the storyboard!

But here is some prove of our timeline attempt.

Feedback

This is developing into a very proficient Advanced Portfolio blog and there is a clear sense of your artist's image emerging from the research that you have done.  You have included plenty of detail in the posts that have been included but I was also expecting to see some evidence of timeline/visualisations, even if they were not complete.  Perhaps they could be included this week.

James

Research #4: Digipak covers

During my research for indie album covers I thought that there are two types of covers, the crazy one and the plain one. Here are some examples:

Plain - Big focus on the name of the artist. Gives a feel of depression, melancholy, anxiey and oppressive mood. This gives the impression for the listener that the music might be quite slow and pensive - making the listener sway in his thoughts and let emotions erouse.

Crazy - these digipaks have all in common very bright colors, experimental fonts and abstract or surreal patterns or images. These artists prepare their listeners for a music experience that promises a more upbeat tempo or experimental songs.

Opposite of artists, Hip Hop/Rap and House - to show the big difference between these genres, here are some covers of Snoop Dogg and Sak Noel who oviously making reference to their music by selling their CDs with what their style stands for: Girls, Money, Cars, Violence, Party, Sex. It's a much more radical style and probably stands more out in the CD shelve of a music store. 

EVALUATION

For Peter & The Wolf I'd say I choose a plain digipak with one innovative or outstanding element, eg a color or an animal or a fond that's eye-catching.

Institutional Context

Congratulations to Peter & The Wolf! He just got signed with

Moshi Moshi Records.

Moshi Moshi Records is a music label based London that is specialised on indie and bred successful artists such as: Bloc Party, Kate Nash, Lykke Li, Florence And The Machines to only mention a few. It has also Samuel & The Dragon under contract who I just mentioned a few posts earlier.

It is named after the japanese telephone greeting 'moshi moshi' meaning hello. It was founded in 1998. 

I think this record label would suit Peter & The Wolf because it is his style, it's not afraid of being creative and experimental but still support their artists to have a successful career!

Research #3 into Music Video Styles&Elements

As me and my group came up with the idea of having two kind of worlds in the clip - 1) Peter's reality and 2) his imagination – we need really crazy and bizarre ideas to convey his madness.
To find some inspiration I’m looking at…..

by Bloc Party. At 1:30 special effects start to emerge in some shots that look quite disturbing and spooky which I think could work for our production as well.


For the imagination part, I would like to edit the image with a grainy old looking style at some moments. For example seen in 'Death Proof' by Tarantino:

Target Audience of Peter

For defining the target audience of Peter and The Wolf I use the 'Encoding-Decoding Model 3' by identifying the demographic and psychographic characteristics a Peter&The Wolf Fan would have. I do this with an example of one single person.

Demographic:

• 22 years
• male
• bisexual
• white, eurpean
• looks: pale, tall, skinny, longish dark curly hair, black eyeliner, denim shirt or white T-Shirt, wooly colorful hoodie, denim or leather jacket
• JICNARS scale: C1, which identifies the status - supervosiry/clerical/junior management: moddle-class, like teacher parents, jobbing in supermarket or CD store, no Uni.

Psychographic:

• looking at VALS - The psychographic profiling system: he'd be a drifter, innovator or experiencer
• young, chilled, impulsive
• spending much money on music&film, well all he has, is not sure what he wants from life but has a clear opinion on art and his preferences -> arty, independent films and music
• individual
• doesnt need attention
• thinker

Feedback

There is some useful work here into Patrick Wolfe as an influence.  However, there is still room for improvement here in the range and depth of information on the blog this week.  You have a very clear idea of your hypothetical artist, so there should be a much greater amount of research into other similar artists' backgrounds and images.  In addition, you have not yet posted the demographic and psychographic profile of your target audience which is an essential element of the planning process.  Try and get this up to date before the timeline goes on.

James

Research #2 into the Indie World

Quoted from a website that takes the piss out of music and different stuff, these are the facts about Indie. It is of course exaggerated, but still a kind of the truth:

Just The Facts

1. "Indie music" is a term most commonly associated with unsigned or minor label bands that have a folk/alt/rock/electronic sound.
2. In addition to liking music that nobody else does, the one thing that unites the indie scene is a willingness to wear clothes nobody else would be caught dead in.
3. The favored environment for indie music culture is festivals; however it can be found in clubs, thrift stores and Urban Outfitters.

http://www.cracked.com/funny-1677-indie-music/

Also from that website, a questionaire about indie bands that again makes jokes of indie artists, but again contain some true facts about especially indie fans. Eg that the less famous the band is the cooler it is and when they get famous they're not cool anymore and the fan behaves really cocky about knowing them since aaaaagesss.

I think, the point I'd like to make is that my invented artist Peter & The Wolf can be both indie (INDEPENDET and INDIVIDUAL) but signed with a successful music label and is aiming for the Charts! Because that's what it is about. Of ocurse all the indie bands just have this great passion about their music but if no one listens to it, they cant afford to make music anymore. Somehow.

And in the eyes of the fan he can still identify himself with Peter's personality that gives the consumer the Indie experience.

Research #1.2: Artists - Samuel & The Dragon

Not only a similar name,no, also a similar style, look and genre. And I just found out that this guy exists! So no copied ideas guys.

Research #: Artists

To find out a little bit more about the genre and style of my hypothetical Peter & The Wolf, I'm gonna do some research about artists that I think are similar to him. 

This is what I found!:

Patrick Wolf: 

• Indie male solo artist
• mid twenties
• gay or hetero - both is possible by looking at appearance
• melancholic/experimental music and way of presenting himself
• seems as if he's alone most of the time - gives this lonely and seeking for something-impression

  

Track + Video
I think 'House' is a really good and interesting music video as well as song that suits the style of the artist himself. It reinforces his image of the 'lonely teenage-dirtbag' when being all alone in the derelict house and staring out of the window on to the world, and wondering about the oddity of life and people. 

The next clips are also by Patrick Wolf but rather short videos that catch a certain atmosphere which at the same time relates to Wolf's style and image. Also, I love the way it's filmed and works as a inspiration and influence for my own production!


This is the kind of mood I would like my music video to embody by using similar lighting, shots and pace:

And in this one he even uses a wolf which relates to the animal aspect I would love to have in my video as well which should deal with the theme of being human or another species.... ?


Sources: http://www.patrickwolf.com/


Grizzly Bear

• Indie band
• 'Foreground'
• arty, weirdy, experimental, melancholic

  

Image: 'Florence And The Machines'

Songs are also known by not-only-indie-fans.

PITCH IT!

Pitch of initial idea

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Proposal for a new Pop artist

Group: Paula Riemann, Helena Lageder, Grace Anthony, Leyla MJ

THE ARTIST

Name: Peter & The Wolf

Genre: Indie – 1 man band, he’s writer and singer

Image: original, outsider, melancholy, fragile

Target audience:

è    niche audience

è    arty, young adult +, open minded, cultured

Song: ‘Foreground’

First ideas/treatment – Concept

Identity 

Loss of identity                                                                      finding yourself

                                                What’s role in life?               -> Gender/sexuality

One cohesive narrative: 

-         wide/mid shot of Peter in front of glass painting/writing on it

-         seems as if he writes on camera lense

-         glass is getting more filled up at every shot

-         final image: completely filled up sheet of glass

3 set-ups:

Feedback

This is excellent, Paula. Plenty of detailed information on the prelim shoot which gives a really good sense of process. There is one 'empty' post on narrative in music video, but otherwise this is really comprehensive. Keep going with this detail on the research and planning for the main task.

James

Advanced Production Portfolio - First Ideas

Track: Grizzly Bear - 'Foreground'

Basically, the whole group agreed to the fact that we dont want to do a stereotypical boy indie or rockband showing them how they play their songs.

We are interested to do something more arty and weirdy.

BRAINSTORM - Here are some shot and element ideas we'd like to have in the video:

- slow motion

- color/paint on singer's face

- strong/intense lighting

- smashing vase, and rewind slowmotion

- Lego rain

Personally, I find the lyrics very meaningful but difficult to read. I think that the basic theme is losing track of life and finding directions in the middle of too much work and too many stuff going on - suffocating in nowdays exaggerated amount of offers on possibilities and activities.

As he sings about foreground and background, I think I want to use focus pulls and two people, a guy and a girl, belonging to the same person. Basically the two sides of one person! Because we all have a feminine and one masculine side.

This is a smiliar shot I think would fit in my music video only that the singing person would look straight  into the camera meanwhile the other one watches the other one singing. This could be enhanced by quick cuts that swop the positions of the leadsinger. For example, in one moment the girl sings and the boy watches - CUT - other way around.

I also like the idea of a plain white studio location so we can work with lots of props and colors that could mean the life's excessive demands.

Also, we might work with the technique of tilt shifts to create this kind of choking and visually arty atmosphere.

Summer work - Hypothetical music videos

As summer holiday work, we were asked to invent three artists and write a music video for each.
These are my ideas.



Example 1)


Name of artist/band: Global Competition– “Ignoring her”
(Rock, Post-Punk band, 4 boys, 1 female singer)


Star image: Young rebels, enemies of mainstream and conservative dogmas and society, but dedicated to social and political problems all around the world.
Also very competitive and against other bands/artists who are bad idols for younger generation.
Youth, rebellion, fearless, commitment to the problems of our world.


Music Video treatment:
beginning: Real live recordings, like clips from TV News, showing explosions, war, bombings, disasterous 3rd world countries, crying women and babies, wounded people.... Fokushima. – quick cuts, grainy image
- diegetic sound of news clips, reporter voice etc.
- slow fade-in of beginning of song, mixing with short intercuts of images of band standing on a roof top of a sky scraper/very high house with flat roof
- sunset/ or sunrise?
- wide shots establish the band,handheld camera, bit shaky -> unstable situation of world matching lyrics


1st Verse: day/outside/sunny/buzzing high street
- the lead singer walking down that street, passing fancy expensive stores eg Louis Vuitton, Chanel, showing CU’s and MS’s of rich people with lots of shopping bags, laughing, celebrating their life and wealth
- panning to a homeless old woman with a baby in her arm sitting almost infront of the store on the sidewalk
- rich people don’t even notice her and get into their shiny red Maserati
- lead singer POV watching this and giving the woman some money
- big smile CU of woman


Chorus: back on roof top/night/weird orange-blue-dark sky
-fast panning around the band -> hinting on the globe, the earth, they sing about the world...!
->conveying a feel of off balance and chaos
->intercuts with extracts of News

 2nd verse:night/outside a nightclub
- lead singer comes out of the club, in a good mood
- looks tipsy and starts walking towards the highstreet which is rather empty
- she hails a cab when she sees a very young beautiful girl on the other side of the street, she looks rough, but dressed up
- we see her in a wide shot – a car passes and we dont see her for a split of a second – when the car drove past, the girl turned into the old homeless woman the lead singer saw earlier, smiling her big grin
- shocked reaction shot of lead singer
- back to the othe side of street, the girl looks like the girl again and gets into a big fancy black car with dark windows
- obviously a prostitute, not older than 16 years
- no cabs in sight anymore
- it starts getting colder and raining
- lead singer walks down the empty street
- same street from earlier, but it changes while she’s walking:
• the high class stores transform into shabby corner shops with dodgy looking shop assistants (CUs showing them)
• the clean pavement transforms to be dirty and dumped with litter
• same sky color like in first chorus on roof top
- she starts running until she sees a scyscraper house on the high street (we recognize it from the chorus
- match-on-action: opening the door -> coming out of the door on the roof where the band already waits and plays as well lead singer #1 already stands infront of the mic and sings!
- Who is she?
- Lead singer #2 breaks down next to the band


Chorus: rooftop
- lead singer #2 still lies next to the band while they play the chorus
- her clothes vanish but they just change into the clothes of the young girl, and eventually she completely turns into her
- she gets up and walks around the band
- intercuts of this image and the original chorus(only band, and panning around)


- young girl sits down in a corner with brick wall stones on the roof, starts crying, puts her face into hands
- cut to band
- cut back to girl, but where she used to sit, sits the old woman with the baby
- music ends
- slowmotion – not completely slow motion, just decelerated movements of band putting down their instruments and leaving the rooftop through a door/gate to the stair case
- Extreme WShot of roof top: sun breaks through the dark sky
- Throwing a sun stream on the woman and the baby
- Fading out – black.



Exemple 2)


Band: Freddy Krueger - 'Nightmare'
Style: Heavy Metal, Screamo
5 male members
Image: "Slipknot" and "Bring me the horizon" like - dark, scary image, like outsiders back at highschool who seek revenge, sing of murder and death, hints on rebellion and violence, escape ideologies and life ruled by rules, conventions, limits, and realism


Music Video Treatment:
Opening sequence is a film sequence of the original movie "Nightmare on elmstreet" + diegetic film sound: girl goes to bed, slowly falls to sleep, turns around and Freddy lies next to her
diegetic scream but turned-up volume
shaky zoom out of movie, zooming into another bedroom
ECU of alarm clock showing 0:00h
ECU on eye of lead singer lying in bed and waking up, sharp opening of eye
song starts
establishing the room by showing the bed by looking down on it revealing the singer rolling onto his back
quite contrasting image to hard music playing
->whole sequence interrupted with quick intercuts of band playing as crazy/cut ins of instruments
1st verse: lead singer walking out of his house, whole world looks unreal, moving spooky looking trees, moving sidewalks growing bigger and smaller, people looking like zombies and giving him weird looks who looks normal
he enters a house, we recognize it when he opens the door to an empty bedroom its the bedroom of the one girl he dreamed about
we can see panic in his eyes -> he realizes he has to save her bforefreddy comes!
he seeks her in the house, camera shows shes in bathroom, in front of mirror combing her hair, looking very pretty, getting ready for bed
lead singer passes the bathroom with an open door but doesnt discover her
Mid shot of her and the mirror, focus pull, deep focus on lead singer passing the bathroom in the mirror but looking like freddykrueger while girl bends over to wash her face
lead singer looking normal again goes back to her bed room and gets into her bed, same side Freddy lied
she enters the room, doesn't see him, goes to bed.....
remade sequence and original movie sequences intercutting with each other
over the shoulder of girl on lead singer
she starts turning around and he realizes: HE IS FREDDY


Chorus: same scream introduces chorus
band playing and singing in a small black room with CGEs hinting on dreams....
when band member CUs, their faces transform into freddys scar face


2nd verse:
again the leadsinger walking through streets
but this time no zombies
people look normal, too normal that its scary, posh stiff faces and clothes, laughing at him, pointing at him
he is revealed as Freddy Krueger, ugly and with scars... confined in the dreamworld.


Chorus again


Ending: silent, diegetic sound of heavy breathing
he wakes up
alarm clock turning to 0:01h
CU on eye, slowly zooming out to reveal his whole face and body
camera pans higher and reveals Freddy Krueger behind him in bed
he starts whispering his song 1,2 Freddys coming for you....
last thing we see is lead singer turning around shocked and black!


Example 3)

Band: Schattenvernichter (german: ) -
Style: Jazz, swing
Image: Happy, crazy, loving and stoned Berlin scene boys. Sex, Drugs and Music!


Outside/bright sunlight/early morning
- diegetic sound of birds, CU on a young man’s face, coat buttoned up, hat pulled down coverin half the face ->looking mysterious
- sudden jump in mood when music kicks in, wide shot showing him at the river, he rips off his coat wearing only swimming trunks and he jumps into the water!
- People come to this beach bar-like location, stereos are getting set up, party people everywhere, musicians (the band) carry their instruments to the river, playing barefeet in the sand
- Shots of bartenders, pretty girls dancing and celebrating, laughter etc.
- quick cuts to reveal all of this and create a happy summer atmosphere
- (feeling of Bacardi TV commercial)


- the party continues in the streets of Berlin
- like a carnival, all the people from the beach bar take over the streets and run into houses, drag out people to party with them
- run into supermarkets, taking what they want and encourage the shop assistant to join
- the group of people gets bigger and bigger
- party gets crazier and crazier
- intercutswith the beachbar: the band thrown their instruments into the river, fast cuts and eventually staying at beach bar, only band is still there


- end: a bird’s eye of the musicians lying in the sand, zooming out, slowly turning


- final image of sunset at the river and shallow focus of skyline in backround


Mood pics:

 

How did the band image influence my video?

Obviously, depending on the image of an artist, the music video's styles are chosen. 
In this case, Acres Of Life is a young Punk/Rock band and also Newcomers. This had an impact on the whole idea of the clip as we wanted to show that these guys can play their instruments very well and their dedications and passion to music. So the set was a simple studio to focus on the music and the boys which should create them an identity by showing faces.



This identity should still be a teenage one because this would be the target audience as well. Entering the music industry with a song that sings about girls tells us something about the boys! That they are teenage boys who like to have attention by pretty girlS but at the same  time make quite tough and loud music!

In my view, that image can be resembled with bands like:

• The Beatles (when they were young)

• The Kooks

• Bring Me The Horizon

• Bless The Fall

We also tried to underline the music as effectively as we can with fitting shots and cuts. Quick cutting should convey the increasing speed of music and craziness of band!

Acres Of Life - 'Petty Girls Smile' FINISHED PRODUCT

Star Image - Christina Aguilera

The transformation of a star image

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