Monday 29 June 2015

Under Control Analysis

Analysing the lyrics will help us gain a deeper understanding of the meaning behind the song and will also help us create a concept for our music video. 

Friday 26 June 2015

Initial Mood Board


We created a mood board to show the overall artist concept that we want to show in our music video, it includes possible filming locations and fashion styles we hope to emulate.

We included the location of places where we hope to film our music video in; Camber Sands, Clapham Common and Brick Lane. We wanted to show the contrast in locations, the difference between a beach, a park and a populated area in a city.

Sad, love songs often feature a beach in the music video as the main singer often strolls dramatically across the shore. Our song, Under Control, fits this convention well, but we're keen not to show the lead singer as a stereotypical heartbroken girl.

We also plan to film in a busy city to contrast against the soft setting of the beach. In Brick Lane, there's a lot of street art which we plan to film in front of and possibly use a wall to film close ups of the lead singer.

As we'll be filming in the autumn, an idea we'd like to pursue is filming in a park as the colours would also contrast with our other previous filming locations. These three filming locations are all different and so will contrast nicely against each other, allowing us to show different sides of our filming ability and concept.

We included pictures of women whose fashion style we want to show in our music video; some of these people include Zendaya, Kendall Jenner, Willow Smith and Gigi Hadid. We wanted the style of the music video to show both casual clothing, but also with a level of fashion. A lot of these women are fashion icons and their style will fit the concept of our music video well. Zendaya's makeup in the middle photo is something we hope to emulate, a natural and simple look, with elaborate headwear.

We also included pictures of men wearing androgynous clothing as this simple yet effective style is an idea we'd like to replicate.

Monday 22 June 2015

Target Audience & Analysis

Our target audience ages range between mid teens to late twenties, as we feel people of this age will identify most to the style of music that The Internet create; therefore they'll also identify with our artist and the music we hope to produce.

It's important we gain an understanding of their opinions and what they think so that we know what areas to focus on when creating our music video and ancillary text.

We asked 10 questions:
  1. How old are you?
  2. What genre of music do you listen to?
  3. Do you know the group, The Internet?
  4. What do you prefer to see in music videos?
  5. Which of The Internet's music videos do you prefer?
  6. Do you know what a digipak is?
  7. Would you buy a digipak?
  8. What would you prefer to see on the cover of a digipak, poster and newspaper advert?
  9. What do you enjoy most about music videos?
  10. What do you dislike the most about music videos?

Here is the link to our survey:

Questionnaire


Target Audience Analysis

1. In response to question one, the majority of our responses fell into the 17-18 age category; which meant we were targeting an audience of young adults. This works well with the artist and song we chose as their music is targeted at this age demographic. We wanted to target people who are at the transitional age of further education and higher education; people who perhaps feel like that lack control in their lives at the moment. We wanted Under Control to comfort them and give our target audience something to relate to.

2. Giving our audience an option of three genres, Electronica, Neo Soul and Trip Hop, all of which are genres of music that The Internet produce help us realise what genres our audience are aware of and will most likely buy into. By having this information, this will allow us to focus on a certain genre of music and will help us create content that appeals to our target audience. 57% of people stated they listened to Electronica, which means that they'll have previous knowledge of this music genre and therefore relate better to our music video.

3. 75% of our target audience hadn't heard of The Internet, which would allow Milly and I to challenge conventions by producing music that not many people have heard of. This would allow us to expose audiences to a wider variety of music and help break down conventions between different genres of music.

4. When given the option of Narrative, Concept, or metaphorical meanings; 34% of our target audience said they preferred a narrative storyline, whilst 42% said they enjoyed conceptual music videos. We decided to go with a conceptual storyline after many discussions as we felt that we could produce a better music video and that this theme fit the song of Under Control much better than a narrative. It also allows us as creators to have much more freedom when creating our music video as we'll be able to decide a theme and base our music video around that.

5. We decided to ask our target audience which music video of the The Internet that they preferred, as it would allow us to see if our audience unknowingly preferred a different style of music video compared to the one they initially stated. 50% of our audience preferred the Cocaine music video by The Internet, which is a narrative music video; however we took inspiration from the bright lights seen during the music video and decided to have lights as a running theme throughout our music video; so that this way we're still able to make a conceptual music video, but take on feedback from our audience. When asking for responses, one person stated that they enjoyed Dontcha: 'It is the most enjoyable to watch, and the running black and white aesthetic is also very appealing. It would be very recognisable.' This is something that perhaps Milly and I will try to incorporate into our music video as it seems to resonate with our target audience. Someone else commented, 'I like the race and sexuality representation' seen in the Cocaine music video. This is something we're very keen on, showing representation through our artist and being able to create an artist that is accessible to a larger audience. We hope to this by casting myself as a person of colour as the artist, but also holding auditions to cast someone else to show further representations and also reflecting a gender neutral fashion style at times with small elements of both feminine and masculine styling choices.

6. 88% of our audience were unsure of what a digipak was, which meant that we'll be able to introduce a new media product to the majority of our audience.

7. When told what a digipak is 64% of our target audience said that they would buy a digipak. When questioned why most people claimed that they preferred the storage that a digipak provides. Another person stated they enjoyed the aesthetic appeal of digipak when they have a running theme. This will give us motivation to create an aesthetically pleasing digipak that will appeal to our target audience as well as having a noticeable running theme throughout.

8. 40% of people stated that they preferred to see a picture that relates to the song/artist (something symbolic) and the other 40% said they liked to see a logo, text or font instead on the digipak, poster and newspaper advert. We aim to do this in order to reference and meet our target audience's demands.

9. When asked what they enjoy in music videos, we received a multitude of responses:

  • 'Something that deepens or expands on the meaning of the song.'
  • 'Visually pleasing sets that fit in with the lyrics.'
  • 'The detailed effort put into them. Some music videos are aesthetically pleasing, which are appealing. Overall, if there's a story or theme that follows the song or artists' concepts then I usually enjoy it.'
  • 'Something that relates to the message/feeling of the song. It doesn't necessarily need to be a story.
This will influence us when planning and detailing what type of music video we want to produce, whilst help us keep in mind what type of music video our target audience want to see.

10. To gain a deeper understanding of what our target audience wanted, we similarly asked what they didn't enjoy in music videos:
  • 'Sometimes the length of an excessively long music video where it doesn't need to be dragged out so long.'
  • 'Music videos which are predominantly just performance based.'
  • 'If there are effects from the video (talking, etc) that interrupt the music so i cant just listen to the song as background noise.'
  • 'I dislike videos that make no sense to the song or artist. The mvs that are just meant to be 'fun' but have no real concept are useless to me as a viewer. Dance videos is my least favourite form of mv.'
  • 'Needless objectification.'
This will help us identify what to stay away from when creating our music video. 

Friday 12 June 2015

Artist Biography

The Internet Biography

Background Info:
The Internet are a hip hop, neo soul band formed in 2011 consisting of six members, two of which were Odd Future members.

Their Breakout:
The Internet achieved a lot of their popularity as Syd and Matt belonged to Odd Future and so many of their fans support both groups.

Discography:
Purple Naked Ladies - released 2011
Feel Good - released 2013
Ego Death - released 2015



Lia Tamera Biography

Background Info:
Lia Tamera is a solo artist who focuses on indie soul, whilst incorporating elements of R&B into her style of music.

Her Breakout:
BBC Introducing is a programme created in 2007 to help aspiring musicians breakout into the industry. After submitting an EP she created on her own, BBC helped support Lia by playing her music on their various radio shows which allowed her music to be heard on a wider scale and attract attention of fans and industry labels.Her breakthrough came as she joined the independent record company: Odd Internet.

Current:
Her debut album, 'The Kids Aren't Alright' is set to be released in summer 2016. She will further promote this on BBC's Introducing stage at major festivals such as Glastonbury, T in the Park and Radio 1's Big Weekend.

For more information on BBC Introducing click here

Monday 8 June 2015

Choosing a Music Track

When trying to choose our song, we created a mind map of all the possible song choices we might use for our music video.

We chose songs that fit the concept idea that we wanted go work with. Our concept is based on the idea of a time loop, being stuck in a period of time; however the protagonist will wake in various locations wearing different outfits as they repeat the same sequence of actions.


After reviewing all of them, we realised that these four would be the best choices for us:
  • Lorde - The Love Club
  • Best Coast - Boyfriend
  • The Internet - Dontcha
  • Marina and The Diamonds - Are You Satisfied?
We first decided to get rid of Boyfriend by Best Coast and Are You Satisfied by Marina and the Diamonds, as we thought Boyfriend would be too stereotypical of a song to use and Are You Satisfied was too upbeat for the concept idea we want to do.

This limited the possible song choices to The Love Club by Lorde and Dontcha by The Internet. Both of which are good songs and would work well with the concept idea that we had; however after listening to both the songs both Milly and I preferred the way Dontcha sounded so we chose this one.

The Internet have a similar sound to one that we wanted to go with and show in our music video.

EDIT 

We decided to use Under Control by The Internet, as we felt that the song complimented the concept idea better and we enjoyed the overall sound/feeling of the song.

This song is a lot slower than Dontcha, but we feel we can create a better music video with good cinematography.

Under Control works better with the idea for our music video as it juxtaposes the time loop concept. The song is about trying to stay under control, whereas the music video will show that no matter how hard you try, some things in life are uncontrollable.

We also found that Dontcha as a song is a tad repetitive and could alienate our target audience. 

Monday 1 June 2015

A2 Brief

The brief I have chosen is a promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with the following two ancillary products:
  • A digipak for the album's release
  • A magazine advertisement for the digipak
I think this will challenge me as during AS I created a film opening and so it'll be something different for me to work on. There are different elements that you need to focus on when creating a music video and this is something I want to try and create. 

I would prefer to work in a group when creating a music video, as I think I'll be to create a better music video. I would like to work with Milly, as we worked well previously in AS and hopefully, Sarah, as she created a very well made AS film opening. 

In AS I learnt how to use an Apple Mac and iMovie, which helped me edit our film opening, when creating a music video this will help me. Although editing a music video will be different to editing a film as music videos are a lot more visual and fast paced compared to the opening of a thriller film.

I want to improve on my editing skills this year, as when going through the final process of creating our music video this will be important.