Story

My video will feature flashes of the girl just by herself obviously waiting for someone who know never comes. Other parts of the video will show hearts made out of things such as sticks or stones on a beach; sometimes the girl will be shown making them other times it will just have flashes of the hearts themselves already made.
The video will start with her getting ready to go out then going to meet someone who never comes and her calling him and then being visibly disappointed at the response.
It will start with some images of different hearts and then just some cars on the motorway rushing by; then it will flick to a girl getting ready to go out just before sitting and looking at a photo before putting it upside down on the table next to her. This will show the audience that she is obviously thinking that it is either over or nearly over.
Then the shot will switch to her standing on a bridge making something which will be found to be a heart made out of sticks so the audience get the idea that she is the one making all the hearts shown throughout the video. After she has pushed the heart into the river, she gets a letter out of her pocket and reads it before screwing it up and throwing it into the river.
The girl then will be sitting at a bus stop waiting for someone and looking around for them before finally giving up and walking off, she goes to the phone box to call them and looks obviously upset when the news is not good. She then just starts running trying to get away from everything.
In between these scenes there will be different things interjected such as the girl with a heart balloon, or at the beach moving stones about to make the heart.
The video will show how time has gone by but she is still feeling the same, when she is in the park with the balloon, she will be dressed quite summery so that the audience can see it is obviously at a diffferent time to when, for example, she was sitting at the bus stop with coats, scarves, mittens etc etc.

Location Moodboard



These are some of the locations I think I would like to use for my video; the areas are quite busy so I will have to take that into consideration as I had planned to make sure that the girl in the video was always alone to emphasize the fact that she has been left. I also want to film my video while it is dark and hopefully raining; so the places will look slightly different. I chose them as they have the slightly old look and there are lots of over hanging trees to make it look darker and slightly eerie; if I filmed in the city centre then there would be lots of bright lights and shops and restaurants distracting from the girl in the video.  

Location, Location, Location...

For my video I want to film in quite dark and dreary.  I want to film some of it in a bus stop so I think one of the best ones to use would be in Tombland, Norwich as there are lots of big trees hanging over it making it slightly darker and more depressing.
Another place I want featured in my video is a restaurant/cafe I want it so the girl is walking along the street and then sees them; so one place I could use is somewhere on St. Benedicts street, maybe the Pizza Express as it is quite a busy street and the restaurant has a big window that I could film through.
I also want to film things during the day, to show the different times of year, maybe using the rain and sun together with the way the character is dressed to show how time has gone by. For places to film during the day I have been thinking about different parks and the beach.

Crystal Castles

Crystal Castles is an experimental electronic music band from the province of Ontario consisting of producer Ethan Kath and vocalist Alice Glass. Crystal Castles are known for their chaotic live shows and their low-fi melancholic home productions. To listen to Crystal Castles "is to be cast adrift in a vortex of deafening pain without a safety net. You get the feeling you could do anything in the world, but that 'anything' would ultimately mean nothing. Crystal Castles marks a nuanced emotional territory that dance music never covered before.

Storylines

From my audience research I can tell that most people think that the storyline to the video is one of the most important things. However Crystal Castle videos generally don't have strorylines that run through, they are more abstract pieces, so I need to find a balance between the two.

Some artists are known for their videos having storylines that link directly to the song for example, Plan B's current album, The Defamation of Strickland Banks tells the story of his alter ego, Strickland Banks, each video continues from the previous telling the rise and fall of Strickland. Its something Plan B then himself brings to stage, always dressing in costume.
Another artist famous for their story telling is Lady Gaga; each of her videos is an entirely new story, each of them like a mini movie on their own. They get people talking about how outlandish she is, which is what the aim of music videos are, to get people noticed.
Some videos imitate the lyrics to a tee; for example Just Jacks song The Day I Died - it told the story of a man on the last day of his life the video follows on the lyrics and tells the story with James Nesbitt featuring as the

Narrative of the Video

At the moment I am thinking that the video is going to be about a girl whose boyfriend is really unreliable and she is trying to convince herself she doesn't love him although she can't get herself to leave him. He never turns up when he says he will and all he ever does is make her cry.

Letter to Fiction Records

Fiction Records represents many bands including Snow Patrol and The Cure; one of their main bands is Crystal Castles. I emailed them asking whether it would be ok for me to use the song I have chosen 'Not in Love' - Crystal Castles ft. Robert Smith. The song isn't officially released until the 6th December so I had to include the fact that I wouldn't be showing my video until after then.

"I am currently studying media at A level. I am just starting a project to create a music video. I am writing to find out whether you would be happy for me to use the Crystal Castles track 'Not in Love', specifically the rereleased version featuring Robert Smith. Though I am aware this song is yet to be released, I will not be completing my project until after the release date.
Thank you very much for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you."

This is the reply I recieved

Hi Vicki,

The track goes on sale at itunes on Dec 6^th 2010. To license the track, please email kate.bestic@umusic.com

Good luck with your ALevels,

Fiction

However I do not want to licence the track as this costs money and I will not release the video myself it will only be sent to the examiners. So I will just leave that as it is and download the song, legally, when it is released on the 6th of December

Tim Pope

Tim Pope directed 37of The Cures music videos including 'Friday I'm in Love' and 'Close to Me', he is one of the most famous music video directors of all time. Known to be innovative and constantly changing.
During a talk with Eugine Richansky he told us how Tim never actually listened to a song before coming up with an idea for a video and just based it on whatever was in his head at that moment.
Tim is quoted saying for each Cure album "I’d make maybe four videos – two would be classics, one ok and the last one absolute rubbish.”
His videos were always different for example
In The Cure video 'In Between Days' the whole video was shot using a camera strapped to a shopping trolley and the band playing in one room. This was something that had never been done before and was completly different to the videos of that time which were normally big budget pieces. It paved the way for a new type of smaller budget videos that meant more imaginative ways to attract an audience had to be made.   

Digipaks - Key Elements

Name of Band/Artist/Album  - Crystal Castles
Track Listing   - Not in Love ft Robert Smith, Not in Love
Bonus Material -
Pictures of Band/Artist -
Colour/Style to fit with the genre of the band - Blues, Blacks, Silver
Unfolds revealing pictures/text  -
Space for CD -

Audience Research II

Audience Research II from vicki robbins on Vimeo.

Thanks to handheld digital cameras and first time using Adobe Premiere Pro; the quality of this video is very poor; so much so that you can't even always see that there are people on screen! But the idea is there with audio so that I can get the idea of what people want from a music video.
I have learnt from this that I should not include random stories, or dancing in the video. That sometimes something absract is good but generally I should stick to the lyrics.

Audience Research

This is audience my audience research that I did at school; I asked what their favourite videos were so I could look to see if there were any common ones that I could then research further to see if I can use them for inspiration for my own.

Not In Love - Lyrics

I saw your picture hangin' on the back of my door
Won't give you my heart
No one lives there anymore
And we were lovers
Now we can't be friends
Fascination ends
Here we go again
Cause it's cold outside, when you coming home
Cause it's hot inside, isn't that enough

I'm not in love

Could it be that time has taken it's toll
Won't take you so far, i am in control
And we were lovers
Now we can't be friends

Fascination ends
Here we go again
Cause it's cold outside, when you coming home
Cause it's hot inside, isn't that enough

I'm not in love
I'm not in love
I'm not in love
We are not in love
We are not in love
We are not in love
We are not in love

From these lyrics you can see that the story of the song is that someone is going through a break up and how they now can not stand to be around each other.

What to do now...

After a while of not being able to access my blog due to county restrictions I am now back online with an edited audience research video that I will be uploading shortly:)

 Now I have chosen my song - Not in Love - Crystal Castles ft Robert Smith; I am now in the process of coming up with the idea for the video. As I discovered with my audience research a storyline for the video is one of the most important aspects.

Song Choices

I am now not certain that I would like to do the Best Coast song that I initially liked so I looked for some other options but then I have a few options of which songs I could choose to do for the video.
I did not know which one I wanted to do most so I put it to a vote in my class these are the results.

Broken Records - A Promise - 2
Marina and The Diamonds - Rootless - 0
Manchester Orchestra - Shake It Out - 1
Crystal Castles ft. Robert Smith - Not In Love - 6
Best Coast - When I'm with You - 3

It is obvious that 'Not in Love' was the one people preferred, I chose the newer version with Robert Smith on vocals rather than the album one with Alice Glass as I felt that the male vocals came through more strongly and put across the story more which would be more beneficial to my video as the storyline is a vital part.

Things I have learnt from my audience research...

From my audience research I can see that the general consensus is that videos with storylines are better than videos that have no relevance to the lyrics of the songs. I also have been told not to do any random dancing in the video, which I was not planning on doing anyway as I'm not too keen on it myself.

Most people watch their videos online, particularly YouTube, although some watch them on TV aswell. So I will make sure to use this outlet to publicise my video to recieve feedback.

What to do next...

I need to edit my audience research and then look m,ore closely into what I am going to do in the video; maybe even change song choice if I can not find a good idea for my current song choice.

Initial idea

My initial idea is to do a music video. The song I am thinking about using at the moment is Best Coasts - When I'm With You. I have chosen this song as it is not very well known but the band is up and coming so people may start to know who they are but not necessarily have any preconceived ideas about what the video would be like if the band had completed it themselves. The target audience for my video will be people that love music especially indie laid back ones that have a slight poppy edge.

10 characteristics of my target audience

1) 16-25 year old
2) likes music that not many people have heard of
3) likes going to music festivals and gigs
4) individual
5) spends the majority of their money on music things
6) likes most genres of music - maybe not pop/r&b
7) enjoys going out and socialising
8) regularly buys NME
9) downloads music regularly
10) listens to music at every opportunity

5 things I will do this year...5 things I will not do this year...

I will not leave everything to the last week
I will not just do boring written blog posts
I will not take the easy option for everything
I will not just make things up as I go along
I will not forget about things

I will make a detailed plan of what I need to do and dates I have to have completed it by
I will research more into background
I will update my blog regularly
I will use creative and innovative things on my blog
I will do more audience research

Music Video Analysis

Buddy Holly - Weezer

This video uses clips from the television show Happy Days and incorporates them into the video to make it look like they were part of the show themselves. I think that this works very well as unless you knew you would assume it was all one thing; when they transition from the clips to the video they use doubles and show the back of them to make it look like it was the same person from the show. Happy Days is a very recognisable and iconic show and the fact that Weezer made themselves part of the video made this a very recognisable video and therefore made the song popular as well which is what the video is there for. Spike Jonze directed this video and it is now on many best music video lists. At the beginning it features short credits to make it seem more realistic as the Happy Days show; this sets it apart from other videos as it is usually not the norm to have credits at either the end or beginning.


Bittersweet Symphony - The Verve

http://new.music.yahoo.com/singleVideo/?vid=157418610

This video has become iconic due to its simplicity; it was the bands most famous song empasized by the video. It featured lead singer Richard Ashcroft walking down a busy London street singing the song not caring about who he bumped into; letting nothing get in his way. The idea was taken from an earlier video by Massive Attack for their song 'Unfinished Sympathy' which was similar but featured a Los Angeles street. Ashcroft starts walking when the instrumental develops which makes it a bigger start. At the end the rest of the band start following behind him and this creates the start to their next video 'The Drugs Don't Work'

Planning for Planning

If I am choosing to do a music video for my A2 project I need to have researched and looked at a lot of music videos so I build off them to create my own. I also need to decide whether I am making a video that has a narrative to it; if so I specifically need to look into videos with narratives.

After I have chosen my song I need to look at the bands music video style as well as the lyrics for the chosen song.

Research and planning

• How did your research into genre contribute to your production work?
Well, I specifically looked at both music magazines that were aimed at youg people like Keranng and NME as well as ones that focused on rock music like Keranng. I think this can be seen in my completed project by the style is used and the way it was written

• How did your research into audience contribute to your production work?
Well I did my audience research with the 16-25 market specifically in mind as well as those that already loved music; so I went to a gig and asked the people in the queue what they liked and disliked about the music magazines they read.

• How did your research into institutions responsible for the production and regulation of the media influence your production work?
I researched into corperations such as IPC that produce NME and Bauer industries that releases Keranng magazine. From this I was able to see what types of magazines they specialised in and how they used one magazine to promoote another, and if they had branched out onto other media platforms and how they used that to their advantage.

• What pre-production planning techniques did you employ (scripting, storyboarding, shot-lists etc.)? How effective was your planning – how did it help you in the production phase?



• What did you learn from planning your first production that helped you to improve your planning for the second?
For my second production I stuck to a more suitable timeline and did things in a more sensible order.


• How did you use audience feedback to influence your production work while it was in progress?

Brainstorming

Music Video
I think that I would choose to do a song that is unknown so that people did not have preconcieved ideas about the video or compare it to the video there already is for the particular song. Another idea is that I could choose a band that is well known and pick an album song that was not released.


Documentary
CCTV documentary/Big Brother Generation

A2 Production

Out of the 5 choices I know that I definately do not want to do the newspaper option, because it would be mainly writing the text. I think that I would like to do the music video as then you can do both the print and the video.

Another

G325

This is a written paper that you sit in the summer, it's a synoptic paper as it draws together everything we have studied in the past 2 years.
Section A is devoted to the production work from AS and A2.

1. Research tasks carried out (including audience research/research into similar media texts)

Audience research - types of music magazine and articles they liked to be included;
Research into magazines, then specifically music magazines.


2. Planning activities undertaken - including scripting/storyboarding/actors' notes


3. Challenges which arose during post-production - including editing/layout design 
InDesign was broken, and font trouble.
 

This year I will spend more time on my project and the planning process.