Email to record label

Album cover analysis of artists similar to ours

 Foxes- Glorious
-This album was released in 2014, and was the artists second album.
-Foxes is an organic artist and writes her own music about her own emotions, feelings and thoughts.
-Her music falls under the alternative pop genre.
-From the album cover, we can see she is an organic artist due to how simple yet effective it is with a plain pink background (which is aimed at her young female audience) and the simplicity and understated outfit.
-Although the background may be a pinky shade, this doesn't mean that she is solely aiming her music at girls, this is because of what she's wearing enhances and invites the male gaze with wearing a low cut crop top, meaning this album is also targeted at men.
-As well as this, the title is very subtle with just bold white writing on a millennial pink background, highlighting the artists innocence due to the paleness and purity of the colour scheme.
-Her outfit is different to the way synthetic artists dress as it is just regular clothing, nothing out going.

Lana Del Rey- Born To Die
-This album was released in 2012, and too was her second album.
-Lana Del Rey is an organic artist who is an alternative pop singer/songwriter.
-Her album is quite understated with a picture of her taken outside, with just her name and the album title.
-The colour scheme is very neutral, with it mainly being white and a pale blue sky. This shows how album isn't specifically aimed at anyone as she has a very broad and wide target audience due to her maturity and deep meaningful music.
-There is no male gaze in this album cover, due to her being modestly dressed in a simple shirt with all buttons done up, showing she can't and won't be a singer who is objectified in order to sell music.

Dua Lipa- DUA LIPA
-This is Dua's first break through album and was released early 2017.
-Dua is a singer in the pop genre, however some of her songs would be considered to be slightly more alternative.
-This album cover is quite basic yet effective, being that the title of this album is also her name.
-The writing is very understated with just white outlined writing, and the back ground is a gradient of a pale pink/violet shading into a blue/indigo. 
-Dua herself is clearly posing for this album cover similarly to foxes, but not like Lana Del Rey.
-Her style in this is very edgy and almost rock-like with her leather jacket and slicked back hair .
-She too is going for quite a natural look which is quite simplistic, which is very common with artists in this genre of music.

Loop- Call Me Loop
-Loop is a very new artist, who isn't as well known as the other artists i've mentioned.
-Her first album Call Me Loop was released late 2016 and mainly gigs in live music venues or is an opening act.
-Loop is an organic artist like Eleanor and many other artists in this genre.
-She, like our star Eleanor and all the other artists that i've mentioned is an artist in the alternative pop genre.
-Her album cover like most in this genre are very basic and simple.
-Loop's album cover simply has the album title written on a banner on the front, with a photo os her behind it.
-She like Dua is going for a slightly edgier look in this, as she wears a sprayed leather jacket, with perfectly groomed hair.
-This reinforces the alternative genre she's in due to the album being a photo of her, showing she's the one in charge of her image, music and career.

Explanation of our narrative

Psychographic profile of our target audience

I created a Facebook profile for an example of our target audience, to show who we're aiming our music video and artist at. The 15-25 year old mark is probably where we want our artist to sit as we believe this age group can relate the most to her. As well as this, people in this age group listen to this genre of music the most and it is most enjoyed and followed by them
We've created a psychographic profile of our ideal target audience by making a Facebook profile and have profiled them to like the following:
We feel that our fans will be predominantly female aged 15-25 in the AB1 demographic, and therefore they are likely to be in college or in employment, taking their first steps into a managerial role.
They are also likely to have disposable income, and therefore likely to spend it on merch, and going to gigs, which is why we will feature this on our website.
We feel that our fans will also be shopping in Topshop, ASOS, Pretty Little Thing.
Their music taste will be popular but slightly left field pop, showing they aren't buying into solely synthetic pop stars.
They will be subscribing onto various online platforms such as Netflix, Spotify and Youtube, but will probably avoid  Soundcloud, which is why we have created links on our website to Spotify.
Our ideal target audience will go to the cinema once a month, to see the latest tent-pole film, but probably unlikely to engage in more alternative independent cinema's unless it goes to the multiplex. They might occasionally go and watch the theatre, and probably will see Hamilton and Harry Potter.

Performance element of our music video

Music videos similar to ours

Our star's image

Comparing my artists star image

Account of shoot day

Account of shoot day

Timeline of music video

Call List

Shooting Schedule

14:30	Arrive at the location we’re filming at, set up camera, prepare set, sort costume, de-brief actress
15:00	Film bathroom mirror reflection shot, set up the lighting.
15:20	Film first line, medium close up against white wall- lip syncing.
15:35	Film extreme close-up of lips.
15:50	Film actress lip syncing and acting to chorus- Pointing and shouting at camera, close up.
16:00	Film actress at bar, wide shot
16:10	Film actress making movements- spinning head etc, to be used for editing.
16:20	Close up of mouth - ‘Did it frighten you’
16:30	Actress pulls hair, close up
16:45	Actress lip syncing pre-chorus, side shot
17:00	Costume change, pepper next set and lighting. Snack break
17:10	Actress warm up/ stretching for dance routine
17:40	Film wide shot of actress dance routine, different angles, against the white wall.
17:50	Costume change and quick break for actress after dancing, we prepare new set.
18:00	Close up of actress lying down
18:05	Close up of actress smiling/ laughing
18:15	Close up of actress lip syncing pre-chorus
18:35	Close up of actress lip syncing chorus, different angles and positions.
18:45	Medium close up of movements in front of white wall.
19:00	Dinner break.
19:30	Costume change, prepare next set
19:40	Actress now in sparkly top. wide shot of actress on stairs lip syncing
19:50	Actress lip syncing by lit up tree
20:00	Actress dancing in from of/ next to lit up tree
20:20	Close up of actress walking down stairs next to lit up tree
20:30	Costume change, set up green screen on TV
20:40	Medium close up of actress dancing by green screen
20:50	Medium close up of actress lip synching the full song in front of green screen
21:10	Set up dark room for the UV scene
21:20	Apply UV paint to actress, costume change
21:30	Actress close up on lips singing last few verse
21:40	Extreme close up of biting lips with UV paint
21:50	Wash paint off, costume change
22:00	Film actress medium close up lip syncing full song
22:10	Prepare sugar glass, lighting and cameras for the smashing glass shot.
22:30	Go upstairs, film actress in front of crocodile, lip syncing 4th verse.
22:40	Go outside, stand at the top of the stairs, pan shot of actress walking down the stairs to the tree.
22:55	Wide shot of actress lip syncing pre-chorus outside.
23:00	Tidy up, clear up, pack away equipment
23:30	Finish

Significance of outdoor shots

As mentions in previous posts, we opted for a mixture of indoor and outdoor shots. We thought that outdoor shots were particularly important as they could signify something important to our audience.

Significance

Our music video's narrative as about getting over a relationship and how Eleanor, our star, can handle her emotions. One reasons we wanted to use outdoor shots is because it could connote the idea of freedom. The final few shots will include Eleanor outside with the tree walking down steps. This could be interpreted as Eleanor is finally free from her toxic relationship and can do her own thing. The beginning of the video shows Eleanor inside the house. This can connote that she feels trapped but by the end of the song she has expressed herself through dance and now feels free.

Set design

Risk Assessment

A risk assessment is a systematic process of evaluating the potential risks that may be involved in a projected activity or undertaking. I made a risk assessment prior to our filming day in order to insure that we were aware of the dangers there may be and how to avoid them as well as what should be done if they occur.

Before we started filming, there were a number of risks that i would have to consider with the possibility of them happening under different circumstances. There were different types of risks that i had to consider, due to the mixture of our filming being both indoors and outdoors.

Breaking the glass-
This risk was probably the one that had the most thought put into it. In our music video, there is a shot where we smash a glass bottle. We have to be extremely careful with this because glass is very sharp and can be very dangerous, especially with our actress, Eleanor, having some shots with no shoes on. Therefore we tried to find the safest  glass to break, and that was sugar glass. This can still be sharp but when smashed, it can break into very tiny fragments, and being that it was clear and we were filming at night, it could be hard to find to clear up. When smashing the glass, myself and my group members stayed as far back as possible, and we told Eleanor to stand and hold the glass in a particular way so that when she smashed it, she would be as safe as possible. Further to this, because we only had one sugar glass bottle, we needed to get a good shot of the glass breaking, so we filmed on the camera and on all of our phones in different positions from different angles. We will also be using a decoy glass that looks the same as the sugar glass bottle, so that when we film Eleanor holding, it doesn't break, due to it being extremely fragile and we only had one sugar glass bottle. As well as this, there was another risk that we have to consider, and that is to make sure that we cleared up the glass fragments completely. To do this we need to all need to help brush the fragments away as quickly as possible. We also had to plan to shoot this scene at the very end of the day, this was so that we cleared the whole set up at the same time.

Holding the camera-
For a few of our shots, we have to take the camera off the secure stand, and hold it, this is because if the camera is on a stand we will be unable to achieve the shots that we want as the stand restricts us. One of these scenes is when i have i to stand on table in order to get high enough to film Eleanor lying down, to make it a wide shot as well. I had to be extremely careful when doing this as i had to hold the camera still and lie it on my shoulder, in order to record this scene. Another scene that has a high risk, is when i film Eleanor walking down the stairs outside, again i have to put the camera on my shoulder to record it, but this time i need to hang the camera over the glass panel which is the banister for the staircase. This is extremely risky as i could easily drop the camera down the stone staircase, so i will get my group to stand by make sure the camera is secure in this scene.

The lights-
We need to be careful in the scenes where we use the key lights provided by the school. This is because there are some scenes where one of us will have to hold the light with our hands, so that we can position it at the angle we want and need. This can be risky because firstly, the lights are very heavy to hold, and once they've been switched on for a while, they warm up, making the surrounding metal incredibly hot. If this happens, we will have to break for a few minutes, turn the light off and let it cool down before turning it back on and resume filming.
As well as this, the lights had wires attached to it to plug in, these wires will have be left on the floor and we have to make sure that firstly none of us fall over them and that if we accidentally wheel the camera over it.

The UV paint-
Another risk that we will incur is the UV paint. We will be applying it onto Eleanor's lips, because this is on her skin, we have to be careful that she doesn't get a reaction to this, therefore we will test it on her with a little swab, before applying it fully. As well as this, we want to make sure that it is on her for the least amount of time to avoid any irritation or discomfort. We will also have to make sure that this doesn't drip onto our clothes, as the UV paint can stain, and we want to avoid that risk as well.

The staircase-
We have to be very aware that the staircase that we are filming on is outside, and can be slippery if it has rained prior to our film day. We will also have to make sure that Eleanor is careful walking down the staircase whilst trying to lip sync and dance. This is because she will be trying to different things at once, and may loose concentration of the stairs and could easily trip or fall.

And of course, a risk we have to be aware of is that the equipment that we're using (the camera, lights etc) has been loaned to us by the school, and we need to return the equipment exactly how we received it. Therefore we need to all be very careful of the equipment.
Another minor risk is that we need to make sure Eleanor can actually make our filming day, so we had 2 possible days and we shaped it around her plans.

Lighting in Music Videos

Location for our music video

Props

Rehearsals for our shoot day

Before our shoot day, we wanted to make sure that Eleanor was fully aware of what she was doing. We waned to make sure she knew the lyrics to our chosen song 'Green Light', so that we didn't have to waste time of our shoot day to let Eleanor learn the lyrics as we had to spend our time well as it was limited.
We rehearsed the lyrics with her, then she showed us the dance moves that had been pre- choreographed, again so we didn't waste time rehearsing on the shoot day.

Moodboard

I created a mood board of all our ideas to help us understand what we're aiming for. This mood board is supposed to visually help us by letting us know what direction we're heading in for our music video. The images are a mixture os where we ant to film, the emotions we want to portray and the effects we want to use in order to make the most effective music video. This will loosely help us get an even greater idea for our music video.

Filming our Animatic

After creating our storyboard, we wanted to give ourselves a clear outline of how our music video would look along with our chosen song playing. So we made and animatic to show us the exact plan of our music video. We created this on iMovie, and simply videoed our storyboard and added our chosen song 'Green Light'.

We found this relatively easy to make as our original storyboard had lyrics attached to each shot, so knew where the song fit to each lyric, and we edited our storyboard to explain our narrative and our idea for our music video even more.

One key issue with our animatic was that we discovered we had to include more shot choices as some of them had too long a duration, and therefore we incorporated more of the dance routine. We thought this would also reflect the star image as we thought she should be bright, youthful and vibrant. And the dance routine would also reflect the song title 'Green Light' as she would be dancing against the flashing green light.

Analysis of our storyboard

The purpose of creating a storyboard, is to give the directors of a film, programme, music video etc. what they're filming and when they're filming it. It enables them to understand what goes where, so that everything is filmed. As well as this, it helps to create a replica of what you're filming but on paper. This way all ideas are drawn and written out, and are made sure that it corresponds with that is going on e.g. actions that go with lyrics in a music video.

Our storyboard really helped us understand what we will be filming, and we will follow it shot by shot on our filming day. For our storyboard, we made it digitally, and incorporated any inspiration we got from other shots in different and similar music videos. As well as this, we used photos of the set that we would be using so we knew the location for each shot. The lyrics of the song being separated into lines and parts helped us understand how we're filming different shots and when to stop it.

By creating a storyboard, we had planned the day in terms of shooting, so we would spend as little time faffing around by not knowing what to do. We will then have time to film any additional shots that we feel could work well if we think so at the time. This is highly important and where a storyboard plays a vital part of our music video, is because our time shooting and with the camera is limited, so we needed to get everything done in the allocated time.

We found when creating a storyboard both easy tasks and challenges. Within our group it was my job to create the storyboard and so i faced many issues and also many things i could easily overcome.

One thing i found very easy was ideas. Once we had an idea and similar videos we could gain inspiration from i found it easy to decided what shots we could use. For example our opening shots will be close ups of Eleanor which is a similar concept to the song wrecking ball. I was therefore able to take screenshots from that music video and use the for our storyboard.

Another aspect of the music video i found to be easy was the fact our song has a some form of repetition and so we could use similar ideas throughout the video. For example for the chorus we will be using a dancing scene and because we decided on that early on during planning we know for sure thats what we will use on the storyboard.

One aspect i found challenging however was timing our shots with the music and beats of the song. We originally started writing the storyboard with no lyrics underneath and just planning the shots whilst listening to the song. This meant it was difficult to visualise the shots. However once we added the lyrics it became much easier and a faster process. 

Overall, our storyboard includes exactly what we need in order to be able to film our music video, this is helped by having pictures and photos of the shot examples, with lyrics attached to each shot, of which i feel will be very helpful on our filming day.

Our Storyboard

Our final artist

Auditions for our star

We knew we always wanted Eleanor to be our singer because of her excellence in drama and dance, and we knew that she would be the right person to lip sync in the video, and have the right persona to front the song. Therefore she was the first person we went to to audition, and were lucky enough she said yes. We gave her a broad outline of what we wanted her to dance to, and gave her the lyrics of the song and were very happy with the outcome. We felt her vibrant performance, age and looks matched the style of music. Therefore she was a perfect match.

Possible actors to play our artist

Analysis of album covers

Inspiration for our music video

To get inspiration for my music video, i looked around YouTube for music videos. The following post will include random music videos that i have found and what i like about it. By doing this i hope to have a better idea of what i would like my music video to look like.

Clap Snap

One thing i like about Clap Snap was the editing technique that was used. In the video there are very quick cuts throughout. This keeps the audience's attention on the screen for the whole duration of the video. The second thing i like about the video is the bright colours used. This not only compliments the upbeat music but also presents the idea that the princess is the main protagonist in the video. The third thing i liked was the props used. There were roses and crowns used which again portray a 'girly' and 'princess' theme. Finally i loved the cuts between the 'princess' life and the disco life that is seen after. The choreography used in the disco and the paint along with the lighting are things i would like to incorporate into my video.

Glowed Up
The thing i liked about is the dark theme with few lights to brighten up the scene. The purple lights create an effect similar to a nightclub/party. I also liked the effect used at 1:35 where a dancer dances behind a black canvas behind a purple light to create a silhouette effect.

Broken glass

After looking a numerous music videos me and my group decided that breaking glass in slow motion will be a nice edition the the video. There is an example above.

Dance in paint

Our group loved the idea of using paint in video to portray a party theme. However i feel it may be difficult to effectively use paint in the video.

Gold
This is so far our favourite video due to the editing used and the lyrics of the song. The tempo is slow and the drop mid way through the song sounds excellent and would be good to edit.

Our idea

Initial feedback on our idea

After deciding on our first initial idea, we got feedback from our target audience on what we should improve, take out and what we could improve on.
We decided to do this so that we can make sure our music video was as good as it can be to the best of our ability. By doing this we can get an insight into what our target audience wants, so that we can get the best response from our music video.

Target audience interview

Analysis of different music genres

The star image of Lorde

Interviews on Lorde and our song choice

Meaning behind the lyrics for 'Green Light'

Lyrics for our chosen song- Green Light

I do my make-up in somebody else's car
We order different drinks at the same bars
I know about what you did and I wanna scream the truth
She thinks you love the beach, you're such a damn liar

Those great whites, they have big teeth
Hope they bite you
Thought you said that you would always be in love
But you're not in love, no more
Did it frighten you
How we kissed when we danced on the light up floor?
On the light up floor

But I hear sounds in my mind
Brand new sounds in my mind
But, honey, I'll be seein' you 'ever I go
But, honey, I'll be seein' you down every road
I'm waiting for it, that green light, I want it

'Cause, honey, I'll come get my things, but I can't let go
I'm waiting for it, that green light, I want it
Oh, I wish I could get my things and just let go
I'm waiting for it, that green light, I want it

Sometimes I wake up in a different bedroom
I whisper things, the city sings them back to you

All those rumors, they have big teeth
Hope they bite you
Thought you said that you would always be in love
But you're not in love, no more
Did it frighten you
How we kissed when we danced on the light up floor?
On the light up floor

But I hear sounds in my mind
Brand new sounds in my mind
But, honey, I'll be seein' you 'ever I go
But, honey, I'll be seein' you down every road
I'm waiting for it, that green light, I want it

'Cause, honey, I'll come get my things, but I can't let go
I'm waiting for it, that green light, I want it
Oh, honey, I'll come get my things, but I can't let go
I'm waiting for it, that green light, I want it

Yeah, honey, I'll come get my things, but I can't let go
I'm waiting for it, that green light, I want it
Oh, I wish I could get my things and just let go
I'm waiting for it, that green light, I want it

I'm waiting for it, that green light, I want it
I'm waiting for it, that green light, I want it
I'm waiting for it, that green light, I want it
I'm waiting for it, that green light, I want it
I'm waiting for it, that green light, I want it
I'm waiting for it, that green light, I want it