Animatic Storyboard Evaluation

Creating the animatic storyboard was very positive in the progression of our final idea for our music video, we had previously created a timeline of events in the video however by using photographs and drawings in a storyboard format it really brought our video to life and gave us an insight to the finished product. As our group has never created an animatic storyboard before it was a learning experience and took quite a while to do the filming of each individual storyboard as we had a lot of them and filmed each for 10 seconds to make sure we had enough time for each storyboard section. By creating the storyboard we changed and finalised our idea, it is not as we first planned but I feel the idea has progressed and now it works as a finalised idea. The editing of the video worked fairly smoothly and everyone got a go at both the editing and filming which refreshed everyone’s camera and editing skills, preparing us for our final shoot fairly soon. Overall I feel the whole experience went well, our idea has progressed successfully, the animatic storyboard greatly helped this and I am looking forward to replicating our idea in our actual video.

Animatic Storyboard

After creating our storyboard we then created an anamatic storyboard by filming and editing our storyboard using Final Cut Pro; this process was very useful as not only has it left us with an animated storyboard which gives us a moving insight into how our music video will look but it also gave us a chance to refresh our filming and editing skills.

Our Timeline

Copyright permission for track

To (name of record label/contact at record label)

UNIVERSAL PUBLISHING AND RAM RECORDS

 

We are a group of A Level students working on an A Level project for a qualification in Media Studies. We are writing to request permission to use the following track as part of this project:

Name of track and artist

"LET YOU GO" - CHASE & STATUS

With your permission the track would be used as the accompaniment to a short form video that is made purely for assessment purposes and will have no commercial usage. The video will be viewed only by members of the school community and the assessor of the examination board.

The artist and the copyright holder will of course be fully recognised in the pre-production and evaluation material that accompanies the project. We can also include a full copyright notice if required both in the planning material and on the video itself.

Yours sincerely

HOLLY JADE FINLAY, PATCH WADSWORTH, CHARLIE LINDSAY AND OSCAR JACKSON
Student names
Hurtwood House School

Initial Concept of Music Video

Institutional Context

Our Artist SMAK, will be signed to a very small independent record company. A record company such as Bad Sekta. Bad Sekta showcases experimental electronic music from genres that have grown and developed out of the free party scene. Fusing elements of Drum’n’Bass, Techno, Hardcore and Industrial, as well as a hefty dose of experimentation; non-commercial styles of music have been able to flourish in the free party environment and Bad Sekta aims to bring some of these artists to the ear of those who’d normally pass them by.

This type of record company, really helps to highlight their type of star image, and how they would be hired or taken on by a type of company like this. 

 

Feedback

Good work, Charlie, the blog is nearly up to date  but you have not yet covered the institutional context of your artist which is a key element.  It would be worth adding some of the feedback you received on your timeline to contextualise the changes that will be made to this for the storyboarding exercise.  Otherwise, keep going with regular updates.

James

Feedback

Well done, Charlie, there is plenty of material up here despite your problems with Slideshare.  There is a clear sense of the kind of genre you want to work in, although your target audience profile would benefit from having more detail of the lifestyle of the ideal listener.  You could also discuss which elements of the real artists' image you would like to emulate with your hypothetical band.

 

James

Research Into Artists of a Similar Type to our Hypothetical Band

Magnetic Man

Magnetic Man is an electronic music project consisting of popular dubstep producers and DJ's, Benga, Skream and Artwork. The genre of Magnetic Man's songs are Dubstep and are aimed at a similar audience to Chase and Status and our hypothetical band, 'SMAK'. http://www.magneticman.net/gb/home/

Nero

Nero are an electronic music act from England consisting  of DJ's Daniel Stephens and Joe Ray. Nero are electronic music artists, best known for producing house, dubstep and drum and bass. Nero's debut dubstep release was "This Way" in 2008. Nero recently released their first album, named "Welcome Reality", signed to MTA Records, owned by Chase & Status. http://www.thisisnero.com/

DJ Fresh

DJ Fresh (real name Daniel Stein) is an English DJ, and one of the principal members of Bad Company, a Druss and Bass group. DJ Fresh creates predominately Drum and bass songs and targets a similar audience to our group SMAK. His number 1 hit, 'Louder' was used as part of a Lucozade Lite advertising campaign in the UK and Ireland and became his first UK #1 hit. www.myspace.com/freshbadcompany

Identification of Target Audience

The idealised target audience of our band SMAK who would buy into the whole image of the band would be the following;

• Male
• Aged between 14 – 24 (attending school or university)
• Any race although most probably English speaking/Western  
• Middle Class because there are able to afford the consumption of our product
• Trendy and Fashionable, buying into the drum and bass culture
• A trend follower that can dedicate themselves to an image
• To be interested in music culture e.g. reads ‘NME’ and watches MTV
• To be Active on the Nightclub scene, enjoys clubbing music
• Go to Festivals and live performances  

As well as our idealised target audience, the image and music of the band attracts a certain personality also; as the band is young, rebellious, coming from an urban background they appeal largely to any teenagers growing up in London particularly, who are already involved in the drum and bass culture. Predominately aimed at teenagers, SMAK appeal too many different demographics, the image can attract male and females from a vary of classes and locations. Being very much involved in the drum and bass movement they would attract any clubbers.

Research Into Artists Inspiring Our Music Video

We are using Chase and Status’s song ‘Let you Go’ for our music video and so did some background research into the artist who created the song.

Chase & Status are an electronic music production duo from London consisting of Saul Milton (Chase– guitar, keyboards, programming, DJ) and Will Kennard (Status – keyboards, programming, DJ). Chase and Status is a group of two DJ’s who create music associated with the genres; Drum and bass, breakbeat, grime, hip hop, dubstep and liquid funk primarily.

Chase & Status have had three number one tracks on the UK Dance Chart and multiple UK Top Forty hits in the chart, including their forth album ‘Blind Faith’ which peaked at the Number Two spot in the charts.

They met at Manchester University through their mutual love of drum and bass in the mid nineties and have DJ'd ever since, waiting until 2004 for their first production, however their genre has changed as they progressed and became more mainstream to target a wider audience. Chase and status changed their style from more Liquid Drum and bass songs such as "Take you there" and became more commercialized and mainstream after they moved their genre to Club/Dance music. Chase & Status' first album, ‘More Than A Lot', debuted in the UK album charts at number 49 however three albums and a genre change later, ‘Blind Faith’ reached number two, appealing to a mass audience.

Hypothetical Artist Profile and Star Image

Our hypothetical band is called SMAK and is an electronic and drum and bass band consisting of a singer, DJ, bassist and drummer, all of which are included in our track ‘Let you go’. SMAK is a young, urban band raised in a metropolitan, gritty area within London; their back story being that they grew up knowing each other in a poor urban area within London and all were largely anti-authoritarian and rebellious however their music gave them a chance to get out of their lifestyle. The star image of the band is that they are still the rebellious youths that they were, coming from an urban grime area promoting drum and bass culture and epitomising ‘cool’. They would have many stories associated with anti-social behaviour, drink and drugs problems and be constantly on the wrong side of the law which would feed in with their star image. Our star image would be similar to that of the Sex Pistols as an example; SMAK would be known for being rebellious, anti-authoritarian and their controversy as a star image would be just as important as their music. SMAK are a new cool band associated with rebellion and youth and would be heavily connected with the up and coming drum and bass scene.

Our Song- 'Let you go'

After talking as a group and looking at our separate initial ideas for a song to make the video to, we decided to use the popular drum and bass song, 'Let you go', by British band Chase and Status. We chose this song as it was one that we were all familiar with and enjoyed, also because we wanted to create a video for a fast paced dance song in which we could incorporate a lot of movement. Now that we have decided on our song we will research similar artists to create a hypothetical band and star image and then come up with an initial treatment for our music video.

Initial Music Video Treatments

Over summer we had to come up with some initial ideas for music video treatments, to prepare ourselves for coming up with our final idea for our music videos. I came up with three treatments for music videos for existing bands, taking their image, genre and style of music into consideration and portraying this in my treatments.

Music Treatment 1

Artist: Youth Group

Track: Forever Young

Image of Band: Youth Group is a young artistic, independent band who plays songs with a predominately alternative genre. The song is a slow, melodic , alternative/indie rock song with guitar, vocals, drums, bass and piano.

Music Video Treatment: The video would have both a narrative and performance element, as there are the common instruments in bands, guitar, drums, bass, vocals and piano, it would be easy to create a similar hypothetic band and have them mime the song. The narrative element of the song would mirror and emphasise the image of the band, using many artistic and alternative shots and would have a youthful and generally artistic feel to the video. The narrative would be a montage of shots of youthful teenagers acting rebellious yet having a good time, drinking, smoking, doing graffiti, skateboarding, and etcetera. This image would mirror the cool, youthful, rebellious image of the band. As the song progresses however and past the climax of the song, the fun-loving youths would face the consequences of their actions, being arrested for drugs, becoming involved in gang warfare etcetera. This narrative element would again portray the band as rebellious and would tie in with the lyrics of the song ‘I want to be forever young’.

Music Treatment 2

Artist: Fabolous

Track: You Be Killin Em

Image of Band: Fabolous is a black rapper American rapper who creates hip-hop rap music. His image is a cool, trendy, masculine rapper; as he is marketed as a stereotypical black rap artist he is associated with rebellion, masculinity and womanizing, I would replicate this image in the video.

Music Video Treatment: My music video treatment would be predominately performance based and I would only have the miming of the rapping and vocals rather than any instruments in the song. The focus of the video would be on my hypothetical artist who would be rapping throughout the video in various locations and situations. I would mirror and expand on the image of the artist by conforming ‘black rap stereotypes’ by placing him in situations surrounded with pretty girls, excessive wealth objects, illegal substances and creating a ‘cool’ image he is associated with by dressing him in baggy clothes and caps with lots of ‘bling’ to exenterate his wealth. By creating a distinct masculine image for my hypothetical rapper artist I would conform the rap stereotype, having a sexual, sexualised video would add to this image.

Music Treatment 3

Artist: Keane

Track: A Bad Dream

Image of Band: Keane are a fairly well known alternative/indie rock band who’s songs are predominately slow with a rock undercurrent to them; the song is a fairly slow and melodic one however, like my first treatment, includes all the typical band instruments making it easy to create a hypothetical band to mime with. The band has an independent, artistic, ‘cool’ image which I would mirror in my hypothetical band.

Music Video Treatment: Similar to my first music video treatment, the video would have both a narrative and performance element; the performance element would be fairly easy to create as my hypothetical band would mime the common instruments in bands, guitar, drums, bass, vocals and piano. The narrative element of the song would be the story of a youngish boy and girl who have a fight at the start of the song and separate, throughout the middle showing the emotion they feel for each other and the longing for each other as this complies with the emotive song and lyrics, ‘I wake up it’s a bad dream, no one by my side’, ‘You’re long gone’, and would build an emotional connection in the video. As the song builds and reaches the climax, nearing the end I would then have the couple suddenly start running and have a montage of them running through various locations, cross-cutting between the two, using artistic and quick cuts adding to the arty, quirky image of the band. Finally as the song reaches an end the couple would meet and the video with end as they embrace each other, completing the emotional story of the two.

Initial Brief for Advanced Portfolio

A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

> A homepage for the band.

> A cover for it's release as part of a digipack (CD/DVD package).

> A magazine advertisement for the digipack (CD/DVD package).

All material for all tasks to be produced by the candidates with the exception of acknowledged non-original sound or image material used in a limited way in video/radio work. Further guidance will be avaliable in the support materials. For music video, permission should be sort from the artist for use of the audio track.
The centre will be expected to allocate marks according to four levels for each three categories:

1. Research and Planning.

2.Construction.

3. Evaluation.

In arriving at a level for each category, teachers are advised to look for evidence of 'best fit'. It is possible both for a candidate to be placed in different levels for each of the three categories and to recieve quite different marks from other memebers of the same group responsible for producing an artefact, according to his/her contribution. Teachers are asked to support marks with written comments under the three categories on the assesment sheet.

Feedback on Preliminary Pop Task

This is pretty comprehensive, Charlie, you seem to have covered most of the items that I asked for and there is some useful evaluation of the prelim music video.  Make sure that you focus now on the new brief and get your initial ideas and the development work up on the blog for next Friday.

James

Pop Promo Preliminary Task

Music video analysis

Party in the USA

Party in the U.S.A. is a dance-pop song which arranges R&B and pop music elements, as it is a pop song, aimed at a wide audience to gain quick succession it completed this task as it got to number 1 in American mainstream charts and sold 4.5 million copies of the single.

‘Party in the USA’ by Miley Cyrus is a good example of a music video which complies with the star image of a performer; Miley Cyrus is also known as her child TV star alias Hannah Montanna, the ‘normal girl’ by day and ‘pop star’ by night. As Hannah Montanna is a child’s show the representation of Hannah Montanna is that of a young, innocent, ‘good girl’ performer, Miley Cyrus however is currently in the stages of breaking out of her innocent pseudonym and so her video ‘Party in the USA’ helps this as she is no longer the innocent child but turning into the slightly rebellious, grown up pop star.

The video shows Cyrus wearing black denim short shorts, cowboy boots, a low cut top revealing cleavage and dark heavy eye makeup, she is dressed provocatively and her dark clothes gives her a more ‘grown up’ and sophisticated look. In comparison to her earlier Hannah Montanna videos, Miley is a complete transformation aimed at an older audience now who has grown with her through Hannah Montanna to the more established pop star she is today. In the video Cyrus is surrounded by girls of a similar age to show that she still appeals to the girls that grew with her through HM, however she also waves to an attractive man to show that she has grown. The song is a very upbeat, high tempo pop song and the video reflects this with a lot of dancing and movement from the dancers and Cyrus’s fans.

"Party in the U.S.A." was a critical and commercial success, reaching the top ten of charts in eight countries. In the United States, the song peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Cyrus' best-charting single to date and sixth-best-selling digital single of 2009. It was also deemed one of the best-selling singles in the United States and Hollywood Records' fastest and best-selling single to date, selling 4.5 million copies as of April 2011.”

Research in to performance shooting and editing for prelim video with examples of good music videos you found/shots you like

As the genre of music we created the music video for was Motown/R&B we did some research into the two different genres music videos prior to the filming of our preliminary video;

Motown-

"Motown is a record label originally founded by Berry Gordy, Jr. and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation in Detroit, Michigan, United States, on April 14, 1960. Motown has owned or distributed releases from more than 45 subsidiaries in varying genres, although it is most famous for its releases in the music genres of rhythm and blues, soul, hip hop, and pop."

"Motown specialized in a type of soul music crafted with an ear towards pop appeal, the Motown Sound typically used: tambourines to accent the back beat; prominent and often melodic electric bass-guitar lines; distinctive melodic and chord structures; and a call-and-response singing style that originated in gospel music"

As the objective of the music was to 'keep it simple' the music videos are often the same and will only use basic shots to capture the group; the videos I found rarely consist of a narrative found as they are all fairly old however they focus on the movement of the group or solo artist and their voices in particular.

R&B-

"Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s.The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a heavy, insistent beat" was becoming more popular"

"Contemporary R&B has a polished record production style, drum machine-backed rhythms, an occasional saxophone-laced beat to give a jazz feel (mostly common in contemporary R&B songs prior to the year 1995), and a smooth, lush style of vocal arrangement."

In researching R&B music videos I found that they incorporate a lot more movement and narrative plots than the Motown videos did, particulary the more modern R&B tracks. They are usually set in urban areas and use dancing or movement in their videos to comply with the upbeat tempo of the songs.

Evaluation of Pop Promo Preliminary Task

1. The shot choices we used in the preliminary task were primarily all quite basic shots in the sense that we did not use panning, tracking or complex shots but focused mainly on close-ups, mid-shots and long shots of the band. From the research of the band we all knew that they were quite a kooky band with a deliberate individual, vintage and arty feel; therefore in the preliminary task we tried to mirror this image or representation of the band by using arty and unusual shots and angles to film the band. I feel that these shots really enhanced the image the band was trying to put across and worked effectively.

2. In the production our group took turns in rotating the roles we did for the shoot, director, camera man and music technician. T was effective as it meant that everyone got a turn experiencing the different roles we would have filming our proper music video and we got to learn how the directing, camera equipment and music technology works. Personally I liked being camera man the best as I studied and enjoyed photography and enjoy filming so I felt quite at ease behind the camera, the camera work is something I hope to do more of in our music video.

3. Personally I think we worked very well as a team, not only in the filming of the band in which we were organised and efficient getting all of our desired shots but also in the editing process as we knew what style of editing and how we wanted the music video to look and feel so we were quite quick at editing the video together and came out with a result we were all happy with.

4. In the editing process I learnt new skills and developed previous ones in editing; as we researched the band prior to filming we knew the ‘image’ we were dealing with and so not only applied to mirror this in the filming but also in the editing. We used sharp quick cuts between the various vocalists and instruments in the band, focusing mainly on the main singer, to give the song a quick, kooky, upbeat feel to it and quite a quick pace, which I feel complied with the representation of the band. A skill I learnt which will be particularly handy in the real video is how to keep the music in time with the performers, syncing the two together in editing. Although I learnt new techniques in editing unfortunately I did not get to try them out too much as we were in a large group so we shared the time equally and therefore did not do too much each, I hope that in the real music video I will have more input on the editing of the video.

5. I think we succeeded in matching the mood and image of the music video to the image of the band; we researched what image we had to go for to comply to that of the band which I feel we did successfully. The music video also matches the track it was designed for, the editing we did was tight and all performers are synced perfectly due to the technique we were taught in editing. All though the video is purely performance and no narrative I feel it still works well as a music video as it says a lot about the band and their style. In this sense I feel that by our editing, camera and directing skills we managed to create an impressive part of the music video which not only improved our skills and gave us a taste for the real music video, but which works effectively in portraying the band. We did research on the band, which we will have to invent for our actual music video, and then tried to mould the music video to meet that research which I think we did effectively and meets the target audience of the band.

Research into the prelim video artists you shot on the day- how did their image influence their decisions?

Before filming ‘Jane Doe & the Undesirables’ our group did some background research to find out the style and genre of the band so we could try and incorporate the image of the band into our video. From the research on the internet I found out that the band’s genre was R&B/Soul / Motown / Pop and found some information of themselves:

“We are a new Brighton based originals band, heavily influenced by Motown, currently performing in and around Brighton, whilst expanding our fan base. We are primarily a 'pop' band with spatterings of Motown harmony and 'Lily Allen' style tongue in cheek humor.”

Members: Sophie Roberts, Tom Billington, Kate Holdaway, Carmen Reumers, Brad Laver, Jamie Batt, Daniel van der Houwen

From this research on the band I could tell that they were quite a kooky and new band so their image would be quite an individual, arty and cool new band. Their combination of Motown, Pop and R&B made me thing their image would be quite a vintage but upbeat individual style we therefore tried to include this in the video not just in the mise-en-scene which has quite a vintage feel, but also in the shots we took of the band which were quite arty from interesting angles. Listening to the song also influenced our decisions in the music video, the song is quick tempo, upbeat and quirky so we therefore used short quick cuts in the music video editing to try and compliment the quirky song and band.