Inspiration

In class we watched a lot of videos from previous years and one of the ideas we liked was from one video where they filmed a rose blossoming. We wanted to do this idea but we wanted to have the rose blossoming and then wilting but we thought this would take to long. We have now adapted the idea so that we record the petals falling of the rose rather than it blooming and dyeing.

We also watched a lot of videos on Youtube to do with clowns, one of the videos I found was of Pennywise the scary clown for the film IT. It was clips from the movie and on of the clips was of a man in the back of a taxi and at the side of the road he sees Pennywise with a bunch of balloons and when he turns back to face forward he has a balloon next to him in the taxi. I showed the rest of the group this clip and we all agreed it would fit into our video nicely because it is strange. We adapted the idea to fit in with our video, instead of the girl being in a taxi we would have her walking past the clown in the woods and then she will turn round and find a ballon in her left hand.



One of the videos Georgina found was a music video of a song called The Way I Am by Ingrid Michaelson. In the video everyone are clowns apart from the main character, everyone thinks she is weird and laughs at her but there is one man who is in love with her and likes her the way she is. We took inspiration for the clown make up from this video and there is also a shot of the main character being held from behind by the clown in a loving way, we want to add this to our video but for it to be more menacing.

Final Idea

Intro - As the song begins with the vocals 'A, O, A, E, O' there would be close up shots of faces with different expressions, at different angles - profile and side profile. The faces will change with fast paced cuts that mirror the rhythm of the vocals, with a haunting close up of a clown face flickering in and out between the cuts of different faces. Then as the song breaks out into a short instrumental piece there will be a handheld shot following a girl running through a wood looking over her shoulder in fear, some of the shot will be adjusted so that she is running backwards, and will cut between different size and angled shots.

First Verse - We see the girl from the woods emerge out of a tree draped in streamers, she walks along a path and sees a clown holding balloons beside her, the shot is very close to her side so you can not see the arm farthest away from the clown. She watches the clown till it is out of sight then turns to the camera, the camera pans to the side where her arm has been cut out to show her arm holding a balloon, she looks in curiosity then turns back, point of view shot - the clown is gone. Cut to a shot of her sat on a chair strapped to the chair with streamers wrapped around her body the clown emerges slowly standing up from behind her, and covers her face with its hands as she struggles.

Chorus - On the chorus we will return to the footage in the wood of the girl running and looking back, she will find a man slumped against a tree with blood on his stomach. The camera pans around to find the clown with blood on his hands, the girl screams and runs away, the slumped over man lifts his head and we see he has a clown makeup on his face, zoom into red lips.

Second Verse - Zoom out of red lips of the girl from the woods, she is putting on makeup in the mirror in a large public bathroom, she turns to her friend who gasps. Point of view shot of her friend seeing the girl from the woods with her face covered in clown makeup, point of view shot of the girl from the woods as her friend screams and runs out of the bathroom. The girl from the woods turns back to the mirror and her face is made up normally in the reflection, the clown is beside her in the reflection now but she cant see/ignores it.

Chorus - Further shots of the girl running through the wood, with point of view shots of the woods. Then a shot of the girl stood on a street still, with people walking around her, the shot will be adjusted so that it plays fast forward. The shot will flicker between her alone and her with the clown possessively wrapping his arms around her.

Instrumental - At the beginning of the instrumental section it is slow paced, then the pace begins to increase, we will have a montage of random shots from throughout the music video as well as other images that we might find when filming that we can not fit into the video. Then as the instrumental section reaches its climax, and we return to the 'A, O, A, E, O' there will be a shot of the girl stood opposite the clown, the shot will move from seeing her face around the back of her head so the audience can see the clowns face, and then the clown will remove the mask and the audience will see that she is beneath the clown mask.

Chorus - Rapid shots of the girl struggling to remove the clown mask from her head, images of her running from the clown. Then on the last note of the song the girl removes the mask and drops it then disappears, as a new hand comes into shot and picks it up.

Music Video Conventions Depending on Genre

Pop: videos are usually very upbeat, bright and fast paced which makes them appealing to a young audience. If the lyrics and the tempo of the music is more sad the whole tone of the video will be brought down but it will still be quite bright and the artist would probably be in a more sophisticated outfit than if the video is more positive.
-Bright and colourful settings and lighting.
-The camera pans and zooms to catch the movement and emotion of the artist.
-Close ups of the artist are used to show the happy emotions.
-Artist or band perform in some way usually by actually lip syncing the words of the song.
-There is usually a dance sequence which illustrates some of the lyrics.
-There are not usually any instruments present as not many pop bands actually play their own instruments.
-Very stylised – there are often many costume changes throughout the video.

Indie: there is often a mixture of narrative and performance and sometimes the whole band performs and other times just the main vocalist sings. When Indie music videos do have a narrative they are often quite symbolic and do not literally follow the lyrics.
-There is a variety of close ups to show the main artist singing and other band mates performing as well as wide shots of the whole band.
-The colour of the video changes depending on the lyrics of the song and the tempo of the music it can be bright, dark and sometimes black and white.
-Special effects are sometimes used.
-Editing is usually quite fast paced depending on the music.
-The band wears casual clothing.

Rock/ Metal: the lighting and the setting is often very dark giving the video a mysterious, scary and edgy tone.
-The band usually performs in the video. The performance is often very dark and scary and the artists are usually dressed in black, with multiple piercings and dark make up on their faces adding to the scary stereotypical Rock/Metal look.
-Sometimes there is a narrative which will reflect the dark melancholy tone of the music and the lyrics.
-There is a variety of close ups to show the main artist singing and other band mates performing as well as wide shots of the whole band.
-Special effects are sometimes used.
-Editing is fast paced reflecting the hard, loud and fast music.

Hip Hop: there is never really a strong storyline in Hip Hop videos it is more about a massive party with attractive women in skimpy outfits and lots of expensive things such as cars, houses and gadgets. The colours in the video are often quite bright which usually emphasises all of the expensive things like jewellery and brand named clothing.
-As the setting is usually a party there is often lots of people dancing and alcohol is usually present.
-Close ups are used to show the artists assets like expensive jewellery and also to show them singing the words.
-Mostly wide and long shots are used so that you can see a lot of expensive things.

Music Video conventions

These are the 5 main elements which go into making a music video.

The Lyrics: are there to create a mood or establish an emotion or a sense of subject rather than a logical meaning. In ever genre of music there is a relationship between the visuals and the lyrics, within the video, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.

The Music: maybe emphasised in the video by the band actually performing or dancing in instrumental parts of the song. The lyrics do not always match the pace and so the editing may reflect the music where as the shots match the lyrics. For example Crying Blood by VV Brown.

The Editing: always follows the pace of the music and so if the music is slow then the editing is slow and vice versa. Some music videos contain fast cut montage sequences which makes the view want to watch it more than once in case they have missed something the first time.

The Camera Work: will change depending on the genre of the music. The movement, angle and shot distance would be very different between Pop and Metal videos.

The Genre: of the music determines the conventions used in the video and the target audience. There are many different genres of music these days and they all have their own set of codes and conventions which a viewer would expect to see. The mise-en-scène, lighting, editing and camera work would be different depending on the genre of music is playing, for example a Rock video would not have bright colours and the artist in highly branded clothing like Hip Hop videos are.

Music videos today are used to promote the artist or band and help sell their records. When an artist or a band first start out they often have videos which do not have a narrative and just show the artists performing, this is so the artist can attract a wide range of viewers and the viewer can start to become familiar with the artist. When the band or artist is better known they can use a more of a narrative approach to their music video which allows them to interpret the lyrics in a more literal way making more of a short film then a music video. If you take Lady GaGa for instance in her first video “Just Dance” there was not much of a story and it was more about her performing. The camera shots used where mostly close up so that the viewer could familiarise themselves with her. As she has become more well known her costumes have become more extravagant and eccentric and if you take her latest video “Telephone” you can see that it is a much longer video, it has a storyline and there are lots of shots of her body parts and extra actors rather than her face.

Target Audience

Two Door Cinema Club's say their genre of music is Alteronica which is a mix of pop, indie, rock and electro this means they appeal to a broad range of music listeners. It is hard to establish who a bands target audience is but if you look at the people and the companies who promote them you can get a better idea. NME is a well establised music company and their magazine often promotes Two Door Cinema Club with interviews and videos and blogs on their website. NME magazine is aimed at 17 to 30 year old men but from looking at their statisics the median age of the reader is 25 and 73% of readers are male where as the other 27% of readers are female, these statistics show that they are appealing to their target market the most. From looking at these figures we need to try and aim our video, website and digi pack at 17 to 30 year old males as they are going to be the ones that relate to the band the most as they would have heard and read alot about them.

From looking at the band and NME I thought the 3 "UK Tribes" which would be the best audiences to target are Indie Scenesters, Indie Kids and Scene Kids as these are the kinds of people who would read NME and listen to Alteronica music. I used Find Your Tribe and Youtube to find out what characteristics these 3 groups have.

What is a Digipak

A Digipak is a style of CD packaging which is a registered trademark to AGI Media,a MeadWestvaco,Inc.

Digipaks usually have 4 to 8 panels and are usually printed on card with either a CD tray inside to hold the CD or a pocket for it to be slipped into. Digi pak usually does not contain any extra information on the case compared to regular plastic CD cases but does contain a lot more images. Some times there is an extra pocket inside where the usually inside leaflet goes but this is not always the case as many brands want to make their digipaks as simple as possible.

Copyright Letter

Before we could begin making our video we had to ask the band for their permission for us to use the song. We send them this email to ask permission.

Shooting Schedule

This is the shooting schedule Georgina made.

Locations

These pictures are of 2 ally ways near my house in Hexable. We thought this would be a good place to film parts of our video.

With our idea our main location for the video is a woods. Georgina has a woods near her house in Wilmington and she took pictures to show us.

We both decided to change the pictures to black and white as we have planned to film in black and white and so we wanted to make sure that the locations looked good without colour.

Both of the locations are close to school meaning they are easy to get to for the whole group and they are close enough to go out during lessons to film.

Risk Assessment

This is the risk assessment sheet we had to fill out before filming to make sure we knew what dangers we werer going to encounter whilst filming and how we could avoid them.

Two Door Cinema Club

Two Door Cinema Club is an all male three piece band made up of members:

Alex Trimble

Kevin Baird

Sam Halliday

They band gave up their university placements in 2007 when their music started to take off, they where signed to hip Parisian label Kitsune.

Their music is described as pop/ indie/ rock/ electro but the call it Alteronica. The band use a lot of technology to make their sound up until a month ago the band did not have a drummer and so used their laptops to make the beats. They now have a drummer who gives more depth to their live performances. For the next few months the band are playing gigs nearly every night at various venues in Europe.

These are their 2 websites at the moment they haven't yet got their own official website.

Facebook

MySpace

We are going to be using the song "I Can Talk" which is the second single by the
Northern Irish Alteronica band and was released November 23, 2009.

Second Idea Proposal

After our initial meeting with Mrs McLuckie we had to change the song and the idea had to be more exciting. We found our new song and we had a few new ideas for how we could make the video more exciting. We had an idea of making the clown do really bad things like murdering someone and taking drugs and the whole time the girl would be watching her. Near the end of the video the girl would find the bloody knife and and the drugs in a draw in her bedroom and realise that the clown was her all along. At the end we would have a quick shots of events which happened in the video mixed with strange shots of things that do not relate to anything showing her desperation, disappointment and realisation that she is the clown and she is the one who has been doing all those band things.

When we spoke with Mrs McLuckie she said that the video is all ready strange you don't need the drugs to give a reason of why it is strange.

We decided to take the drugs out of it and we tried to think of more bad things the girl could be doing.

How We Have Interpreted The Lyrics

We all sat down and read through the lyrics writing next to each line what we though they meant.