2. How we developed the
concept.
When developing our music video concept we had multiple ideas that took
our interest. For example we looked into using the song ‘Fitzpleasure’ by
Alt-J and creating a trippy/dream like video that accompanied a narrative.
We decided that this song was slightly too well known, for example there
was already a popular music video made for it.
We decided to develop the idea of using an unknown band’s song and
develop their image and selling point. The band we went with was ‘Lion
The Weak’ and their song ‘Wasted Words’.
We explored the work of the well known film practitioner ‘Wes Anderson’.
We used his ideas of sticking to a certain colour pallet as well as using
elements of his framing rules (Having everything in the centre of the
frame).
3. Research included.
As a group:
The basic colour pallets of Wes’
movies.
How we could replicate the feel
of one of his movies.
Deciding upon an appropriate
time period theme to go with.
What I did individually:
Investigated wallpaper designs
that could be used for the set.
Helped decide which colour pallet
we went with.
Decided the cast we were going
to go with.
4. Audience & Genre
Although genres may appear to shift and develop randomly over time, you can think of it a
bit like biological evolution where mutations that prove successful are inherited and lead to
adaptation. In the music industry the process involves successful acts being cloned in some
quite blatant ways such as performance and portrayal of the star image.
The band we are working with 'Lion the Week' are established as an 'indie-pop' band but
they haven't made a 'star image' for themselves as they are unsigned and music is just a
hobby for them.
But as a band they are going for a fashionable look to which their target audience of young
adults can relate and aspire to. Alot of young adults look up to musicians as fashion icons
and 'Lion the Weak' can become fashion icons for 17-25 year old guys.
5. We needed research into
Conventions and real media texts
Conventions (what we expect
to see)
Real Media Text’s I
researched
- For a band of Lion The Weak’s
genre we expect to see a digi-pak
that uses unique artistic ideas.
- Wes Anderson’s artistic framework
to his movies acted as a fantastic
stimulus to getting us thinking
about correlating colour pallets and
visual design to our music video.
Alt-J’s an
awesome
wave acted as
great
inspiration.
Wes
Anderson’s
colour pallet
6. What did I learn about the research of
music video.
One major thing I learnt in the planning process of our music video was to keep it
simple. I found the worst thing to do was think on a small scale, if I looked at the
bigger I found that it was easier to work. For example when we were looking into
an idea with ‘Fitzpleasure’ we were thinking about the video ‘shot by shot’ instead
of trying to design a concept as a whole.
The most useful thing I found was stripping everything back and re-storyboarding,
breaking the video down into three main elements. Performance, Narrative and an
Artistic element. We chose:
- 1920’s performance element
- Two person dance/non-verbal narrative
- Drawing the band’s logo in time-lapse’
7. What Research into Location,
Props, Costume & set design
From the start our team knew that we were going to take full advantage of the
schools equipment/facilities, so we used the TV studio for our whole production
process. This allowed us to be in control of all lighting elements, as well as not having
to worry about weather etc
As far as costume was concerned we wanted the dancer’s costumes to contrast with
the band’s ‘casual’ image. We had the two dancers/actors in 1920’s/vintage outfits
and the band were in standard smart/casual street ware.
The set was designed to replicate a 1920’s living room with ‘stylised’ elements. For
example the cream vintage wallpaper we used was designed as a running common
factor.
The props were very basic, we hired a blue/white vinyl record player as well as a
green Chesterfield sofa that became the centre piece of the narrative. Small props
such as lamps and a coffee table were also used. We used hanging light bulbs as
another stylistic element for our video, which we feel worked very well.
12. Storyboarding/ Animatic
Our storyboarding process gave us an initial idea as to what we wanted each individual
shot to look like on the screen. It gave us creative assistance as well as a technical
assistance. For example when it came to creating our shot list for the shoot day, we had a
clear idea of what to include.
For the actual production of the video we didn’t refer to the story board that much. This
was because we found it was easier to work creatively instead of following a strict ‘frame-by-
frame’ document.
Once we made the story board we filmed it on a Sony NX5 and uploaded the footage to
‘Premier Pro’ where we cut the story board into an ‘animatic’. This enables us to get used
to cutting our footage to the beat of the song. This gave us more experience for when we
came to editing the final thing.
14. Why make a record of your
planning?
Creating a prototype so that you can envisage final product
before production begins enables us to make more informed
decisions during production.
We used pencil drawn story board slides to visualize the video
we were wanting to create.
Planning our CD digipak helped us create a clear idea of what
we wanted to create using adobe Photoshop.
15. Evaluation
I found the research and planning period to be highly beneficial for the successful
creation of a media package for Lion the Weak.
The most difficult stage I have found is creating a CD Digi-pak that is unique and
reflects the band’s style, but at the same time doesn’t mimic the music video.
Some problems I found in the early stages include difficulties around ideas. For
example our group came up with some incredibly strong ideas for different songs but
these ideas were shut down often, meaning we would have to start from scratch.
The shoot day could have easily been improved if we had a ‘set in stone’ idea of what
we wanted to do. At times we were slightly loose with our planning.
In conclusion our research and planning stage threw us some curve balls, for example
finding days were our band were free to shoot, but we managed to deal with them
very mature way, leading to the successful development of our promotion package for
‘Lion The Weak’.
