Requirements

Locations
I will be filming in the City Centre a Flat and finally the gig at the Pub.

Cast
The casting of the music video was the actual band as i chose a local band with the rest being various people walking past.

Props
There is no use of props in the music video as its a representation of the struggle of a small time band, although there will be 2 acoustic guitars, an elecetric bass guitar and a drum kit as well as the use of background imagery for example if the background in the city centre was of offer posters.

Health & Safety
I recognise that as i am filming in busy public places will have to have considerations with the set up of the camcorder and tripod so that its not in the way to cause anyone to trip up or damge the camcorder.

Research Into Genre

After my inital idea i decided to research the genre. the first thing i found was that animation was not really used in Acoustic music Videos. So i decided not to go with the animtion idea but what are the stylistics of the Acoustic Music Video?

I decided to look at videos by popular Acoustic artists.

Jack Johnson - If I Had Eyes


The first video I looked at was by Jack Johnson with the early 2008 single "If I Had Eyes" the video was directed by Emmett Malloy. The Video is mainly black and white with colours edited in a certain parts of the video and a wide range of photographs are used to transist between scenes.

Lightspeed Champion - Tell Me what It's Worth

Mike Mogis’s video for “Tell Me What It’s Worth” by Lightspeed Champion is interesting as it only uses one shot and the only edit is the song over the video and sound effects to resemble the area at the beginning and ending of the video. It shows the artist walking getting off the ground and walking around and people follow him around . the mise en scene shows words creating a narrative specifically at the end with a group of different sign posts representing brand logos we have in our world saying “ I Don’t Love You Anymore” drawing a conclusion to the story which the music video is representing.

James Morrison - You Make It Real

What My Music Video Will Be Like

After looking at these three videos i found i had a good idea of lighting camera stylistics and other major conventions of the music genre. I liked the idea of a narrative that there would be a story there but inbetween live playing so i have decided to base it on James Morrisons - You Make it Real.

Case Study: The Candle Thieves - Sunshine Song Music Video
As a little bit more research I decided to look at a band who are not signed up to major labels and what they have been able to produce with small production companies. This would give me a better idea of what I would be able to produce as this video was made on small budget and from what I have seen created a better representation about what the bands and music are about.

“The Sunshine Song” by Peterborough band “The candle Thieves”.The band are signed to Alcopop Records and the video was commissioned through Radar Music Videos

Analysis of Music Video

The music video has a great use of cut out effects as well as bold pastel colours to express the colourfullness of the music. we switch between to scenes one inside a box area with film showing at the back and cut outs of the band infront and the other being a reference to the e.p cover and having elements from the ep cover to create a short story representing a woman travelling with balloons until the end of the night where as this is very basic it blends with the music greatly in order to create a surreal world where everythings perfect contrasting with the song lyrics while sung cheerfully have more serious notations "you are beautiful but you are going to die some day".

Further Research

I contacted the band the Candle thieves on the topic of themusic video they replied to me with this:

“The Sunshine Song video was done by a guy called Richard Cullen from a company called Pixelfing. He's a lovely guy and amazingly talented. He contacted us to do it coz he said he loved the song. It was mostly done to blue screen, we wanted to create this other world for this song and he made it happen! We just started filming our parts for the next video a couple of days with him once again.”
Scott McEwan

I then contacted the website Pixelfing and sent this message:
hello I am doing some research into music videos for my A2 mediaStudies coursework and one of the videos I was looking at was \"TheSunshine Song\" by the Candle thieves. I contacted the band forinformation on the music video and they said it was created byRichard Cullen. I was just wondering if you could send me someinformation on the production of the video, what programs whereused for editing, how ideas for the videos style and what itsymbolises came to be.
Thank you very much for your time and hopeto hear from you soon

update 12/02/2010
Hi AdamThanks for your email. I'm away at the moment so have only just pickedit up!
In terms of the software used on that video - after effects was usedfor all of the 'internal' shots, using photographed elements, scannedimages and footage of the band that was shot on blue screen. The'external' shots were created in Maya - the outlines of the shapeshaving been drawn freehand in Illustrator and then imported. Variouspasses were rendered from maya - colour passes, shadow, texture,ambient occlusion etc. And then they were composited in after effects.The edit was done in Premiere.
The idea for the video came from several places. The band had quite astrong visual identity which informed the look of the video, and thebudget for the project steered me towards something that was mostlyanimated. And they'd never made a video before, so we didn't know howthey'd be on camera. So we veered towards something that had anarrative thread to it - which also allowed us to do something thathad the same emotional shape as the song.
I'd had an idea about a house carried on balloons (before 'up' wasreleased!), and I wanted to do something that was a combination of 2dand 3d.The basic outline of the story was implied by the song, although Ididn't want to do something that was just a literal take, so I wentwith something that was essentially a metaphor - the idea of a girlbeing taken away.
Anyway - I hope that helps. Sorry if that jumps around a bit!
CheersRichard

Links
http://www.myspace.com/thecandlethieves
http://alcopop.wordpress.com/
http://www.radarmusicvideos.com/
http://www.pixelfing.com/
http://www.biglifemanagement.com/

Update - 20/04/2010

Since researching into this, the band were signed to downtown records popular for acts such as Gnarls Barkley and have an album out in the shops.

Update - 27/01/2010 Change In Project

I recently had to change my music video project due to filming issues. I had to change the band i was using due to time contraints and no recorded songs. I decided to ask other bands from the local area and soon after the Hull band "Infamous Radio" were willing to do it. The band of course are a different genre from acoustic thought they are Indie so here i have researched three indie music videos.

The Kooks - She Moves In Her Own Way

This video shows the folloiwng of the band on a trip showing a variety of different parts through different camera shots it creates a sense of realism about the band creating an ideology that this how the band really are altough this is to a large degree scripted to the driectors wants and needs.

Ideas & Concepts

Ideas are what build what we expect to achieve without them, the media text will never be, whether these ideas are original concepts or similar in the following of codes and conventions or other media texts, we still can have a flow of creativity through these ideas.

My Initial Idea
My first idea was to create an animated music video and I researched early into this, I wanted to create something that could be seen as original but yet follow the codes and conventions I looked at other music videos which are animated examples of these are:

Peter Gabriel - Sledge Hammer – this is a fantastic music video and although it would be a great experience to achieve something like this I have to think about time limitations


Kasabian - Shoot the Runner - another interesting music video by director although this technically isn’t an animation its still gives that fell of animation with high contrast and bold Stative colours it is actually an edited video and not an animation.

Jet – Are You Gonna Be My Girl – This video uses parts of both video and animation in order to create what is seen on the album cover giving it a creative link between products, I didn’t have any basic knowledge to do this and I was restricted with tools

So what software would I be using?
I looked into what software I could use I could have just used adobe premiere pro and a freeware application Paint.net and draw each individually. But I decided to look into more professional software and came across a product called ToonBoom Studio. ToonBoom Studio has been used by professionals in media texts we can view in the cinema and the television, having had Disney use it to create the trailer to the upcoming animated movie “The Princess and The Frog.

After purchasing this software i created a little test called test A after i had learnt how to use the program by using online tutorials and ones created by users on youtube. This is "Test A":

After analysing my lyrics I decided this wouldn’t be appropriate to the music genre and I realised that I didn’t have the tools and equipment needed in order to create the quality of animation I wanted so I chose not to use this.

Audience Research
The target audience for my video was between the ages of 16 and 25 due to the genre, acoustic

This changed when my genre changed to Indie it now has a wider audience starting younger mainly because indie is a popular genre featured in the charts frequently where as acoustic isn’t. The new target audience is between the ages of 12 and 30.

Storyboard

When creating the storyboard this was very different to how I expected to make it but because of time restraints and limitations of resources, I looked at locations and decided to use one more then the other. My storyboard isn’t exactly a storyboard in a linear pattern but it is the shots I will take when shooting tomorrow.

The Chosen Song

The song I originally chose was by a band called Bubl’e, the song was called always and is by a local band.

Lyrics
Verse 1
i love the way you shake your head right after you sneeze
i love the way you bit your lip Just to be a tease
and i love the way you live every day like it was your last
but now that day has gone away and i'm living in the past
Pre Chorus
want to see the messages
I want to write them down
Chorus
we always fight but we fix it up in the end
never not we sometimes muss
but I’ll kiss you if i ever piss you off
and we always run
'cause we need to move
and I'll be there til the end
cause I’ll always love you

Verse 2
we stay up later, turn on the radio listen to Hey Jude
and we light some candles just to set the mood
and you'd stand up walk over and close both windows
and I can see your nervous but we'll see how this one goes

Pre Chorus
want to see the messages
I want to write them down
Chorus
we always fight but we fix it up in the end
never not we sometimes muss
but i'll kiss you if i ever piss you off
and we always run
'cause we need to move
and I'll be there til the end
cause i'll always love you

The reason i chose to do this song is because i knew the band and had been to many of their gigs they told me they where working on some new songs and that if i wanted i could use one for my media project. The band are also an acoustic band which is my favourite genre of music so i already feel i know the genre well and will be able to produce a video in this genre.

Due to time restrictions i wasnt able to record with this band, there was no recorded song either. I then contacted various other local bands until the lead singer of Hull band Infamous Radio asked me if i could make a short video for their band. The first thing i realised was time restrictions the first restriction would be timing i would have to do it all in one day and also area restrictions. We decided on creating a video that would be a following of the band throughout a day showing the struggle of a small time band.

The one thing which i wasnt sure on was the song and that turned out to be Accidentally a slow paced song which became the basis of the editing.

Lyrics

I guess I was warned about you

Wasn't all together myself

Just try to remember

Youve got to deal with the cards you're dealt

I know you're right outside my door

I know weve been here all before

Go as far as the eye can see

Go and dont come back to me

I'm up to my knees

rising water again

you say you want differences

but everdays the same

I know you're right outside my door
I know weve been here all before
Go as far as the eye can see
Go and dont come back to me

Trying to make some sense, or is this coincidental?

I don't know where to be but i don't want to be lonely

but i know it's the right thing

I know you're right outside my door
I know weve been here all before
Go as far as the eye can see
Go and dont come back to me

There is alot of imagery in the song such as playing cards and warning this could be a good idea to incorpate into the video. but i still want to keep my ideology that this is a real band, a real band that is struggling to get noticed.

The Music Video Medium

A Music Video is the videotaped or animated performance to accompany the single edit of a song from the particular band’s album. They usually have one of these three employments:

Dance – Beyonce – Single Ladies

Live Footage – Red hot chilli Peppers - Snow

Fragmented story – Foo Fighters - Long Road To Ruin


The contempary music video is usually between three to five minutes longs and they are known to have quick cuts, connotated imagery and in some cases specific computer graphics.

They are used as promotional material to vehicle the promotion of CD singles, and over time music videos have became more cliché and are followed by specific rules called conventions and codes.

Conventions and codes are what give the text meaning and determine the response of the viewer these codes and conventions can come from three areas
Symbolic
Technical
Written and audio

The conventions of music videos are

The History of the Music Video
The music video we know today is very different to how it started the idea of music with video became a reality in the 1920’s with the arrival of sound films with the “Spooney Melodies” series, these short films were mainly footage of the performer singing the song with backgrounds and animations combined together.

From then on they kept incorporating music into films but it wasn’t until 1959 until the term “music video” appeared. Artists such as Elvis in order to get a worldwide audience would have films which starred him and have the songs in them.
The real revolution was due to the Beatles film “a hard day’s night”. The mock documentary had innovative musical sequences which made the basic templates which promo clips and music videos were modelled upon having a massive influence on not only the style but also the visual vocabulary to the genre.

In 1966 Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" Monochrome clip was featured in Pennebaker's Dylan film documentary this video has also been the basis for the vue-card device which has been imitated in many videos since.

The popularity of the music video form expanded when in 1981 The MTV cable network was established creating a large influence in 1980’s and in by the 90’s hundreds of videos where available.

In Modern day culture music videos are a part of everyday life with over 20 music channels in the UK and the use of the internet with web 2.0 and sites such as Youtube and vimeo allows people to hve easy access, comment, and even create music videos in order to promote themselves with equipment being easier to get hold of.
The target audience for music videos are teenagers although softer songs will be aimed at older audiences.

What Influences The Music Video Today?
Music videos today use a variety of postmodern ideas such as intertextual references from television film and popular culture and genre specifics.

Brief

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

a Website homepage for the band
a cover for its release on DVD
a Magazine Advertisement for the promo DVD

Key Features Of Music Videos (Andrew Goodwin)

• Demonstrate genre characteristics
  
• Relationship between music and visuals


• Demands of the record label will unclude the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which rcur across the work


• Frequent refernces to the notion of looking and particularly voyueristic treatment of the female body.


• There is often intertextual refernce

LIIAR

Language : The technical use of creating my media text and how the conventions will be used to create it. Use of close ups draw the viewer into the scene and more specifically the person portrayed in the shot. The language is what will portray the narrative.

Institution : The producers of the music video in terms of my piece this will be me. By defining the target audience and using questionnaires this gives a key look at what the audience would want out of the text.

Ideology : The idea of what the video is about from an institution point the main purpose is to help the flow of money from the single and album to raise. By creating the video on one of the three employments: Dance, Live Footage or/and a fragmented story defines the look of the video as well as a large influence from genre conventions.

Audience : The audience are the consumers of the media text as being a music video meaning this would be shown on music channels as well as the internet due to web 2.0. The audience can be defined by the genre and the use of questionnaires. By researching other videos that this audience likes we can get a better understanding of why the way the song is portrayed in the video makes that large difference.

Representation : Is the linking of the video and the song following conventions of the genre and establishing the audiences needs by referencing lyrics, other media texts and album artwork representation. Representation depends on the ideology and institution.