Location

Throughout our video we will need to use a few different locations. These are; The girls house (House 1), the house we use to play in (House 2) and a track/open field that we will walk through to get to House 2.
House 1
The main character in our video is the girl that runs away from home because of her over-protective parents. It is very important that we use location well in order to create the right impression for the viewer. The over-protective attitude gives me the impression that the family would live in a very urban area in a new house with calm, safe surroundings with a lot of families living nearby. Like this small housing estate.

 

House 2

Our story revolves around a girl running away from home and hearing music playing from an old abandoned house or warehouse. However, it is more the setting that limits our choice for house 2 as it needs to be accessible from an open field or track. Something like this would be ideal:

Track/Field

Part of our video involves both the band and the girl walking down an open track or field. This was influenced by a video by a band called 'Architects'. The shot shown below left is the shot that particularly influenced us and is one that we will try to re create in our video. The picture on the right shows a track that is close to where James lives and is the sort of thing that we think will be looking to find.

Goodwins Analysis

MR. Andrew Goodwin, analysed music videos and found factors of which evident in the large majority of music videos:

- Firstly a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.
- A relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music.
- Genre-related style and iconography present.
- Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist.
- Voyeurism often plays a major part, especially in relation to females.
- Intertextual references to other media texts may be present.

He says that music videos are often constructed by the link between the visuals and the song plus the artist. Relationships are built between these in the video, and the close-ups of the artists gives them the representation and publicity they require.
Many of these features are present in all music videos, depending on the genre of the song and the aim of the record company/artist.

Storyboards

Whilst planning our pitch for our music video, we decided it would be a good idea to gather all our initial idea and round them up into a storyboard the benefits of this would be to convey our brain storming in a clearer and more professional way.

Influential Videos

This is the first of our influential videos. It is by a band called called 'Architects' and is of a rock genre similar to our song. The things that we really liked about this video is the location, colours and clothing/costumes used. 

This genre this music can be categorized into isn't relevant to our genre but we get a feel of the loneliness that we would like to show in our video. The clothing is relevant as the clothes are quite shabby and often there is scenes where a backpack is shown like we would like to show in our video. 

Our last video is by another similar band 'Lostprophets' the performance scenes are like what we will like ours to be like and the general theme of rebellious teens is also present. 

Moodboard

This is a moodboard that we created and used when pitching our ideas to the audience, it is made up of images from other music videos such as 'A team' 'Rooftops' 'Heartburn'. These are songs not necessarily from bands similar to ours but we feel that they are relevant to the feel we will attempt to create in our video. There are also images such as the candles that are particular to our video. The main aim of this moodboard in the pitch was to create and idea of our video without going into too much detail, hopefully keeping the audience interested without boring them.

Initial Ideas

Our first choice is 'Seventeen Candles' by 'Pink Spiders'. 
After looking through the lyrics and putting meaning to words we have come up with concepts that we would like to include in our video that are both fulfilling of the lyrics and that are relevant to the stage of our lives we are currently in. This stage we are referring to is commonly known as the'rebellious' stage. The particular lyrics that suggest this stage or attitude are: 


- 'Everybody's cool with the "I don't care".'
- 'That she believes she's a bit old for cake and gifts and party favours'
- 'Then i'm packing up my Shit and i'm gone'


As well as this there are constant references to acts that would be seen as 'wrong' to the more mature adult, such as smoking and drinking alcohol underage.
The lyrics also clearly stated that the girl in focus - Emily, was clearly turning seventeen. 
We thought that this would be a good way to show her turning against her parents and doing something that she wants to do for a change as oppose to what her parents want her to do. 'She believes she is a bit old for cake and gifts and party favours'.
We thought that a gig would be a good way to show this and since this is a music video, it could be our gig that she comes to watch after running away from home.


To summarise, our idea was to have a rebellious teenage girl - Emily, on her seventeenth birthday running away from her parents and their 'Gifts and Party Favours' and going to a rock concert/gig. 

Analysis (using Goodwin) Of 2 Real Music Videos

First Music Video - Goodwins's analysis - LMFAO - Party Rock Anthem.

The first thing we see in this video is an intertextual reference to the film '28 Days Later' which is one of Goodwin's points of analysis. We see many more also being incorporated throughout the video.

The next we see is a close up of the artist, which Goodwin states is often demanded by the record label. This close up helps the artists establish a certain visual style. Here, we see a very 'upbeat' style being adopted with wild hair and extravagant clothing.
This song would typically fall into the 'pop' genre and shows common characteristics of this genre. Such as catchy dance routines, and dance groups.

Aspects of mise en scene also help support this assumption, particularly the bright colours of clothing and bright, artificial lighting.
The relationship between lyrics and visuals is illustrative, this is highly recognizable as the dancing which the 'characters' are doing is an exact representation of the lyrics 'Shuffling'.

Second Music Video - Goodwin's Analysis -

This second video is of a much different genre than our previous, it has typical characteristics of rock, such as seeing the whole band behind the singer with the typical Guitar, Drums etc..
in addition to this the needs of the record label have been met with various close ups of the band and most frequently the bands main singer, one final aspect of the video which stands out is the replacement of instruments with white drawings which interact with the sound.

Analysis of VMA's

You & I (Live at 2011 VMAs)


Function-  Entertain the audience and viewers watching the VMA's. also to pay tribute to Jo Calderone with a powerful, passionate live performance. One of the cliche main functions of the music industry is all about the money hence why this is seen to be a simple publicity stunt to raise sales and to generate a bigger gross income, opposed to a simple good willed tribute of which its portrayed as.

Target Audience- As she tributes the famous actor Jo Calderone she would obviously appeal to his fan base as well as this the target audience would consist of anyone watching the award ceremony and her already existing fan base and also fans of the actual award ceremony itself.

Context- Live Performance at the 2011 VMA's

Presentation of Artists- Perceived as a male figure in the media and the press and is ironically dressed as a male in this performance as its fitting for the lyrics and overall performance as its in tribute to the actor Jo Calderone.


Content- The artist lady gaga performing a live performance of her single You and I, dressed as the famous actor Jo Calderone, in a 'very' 60's blues style i.e.  slick backed hairstyle, black suit/ blazer , cigarette smoke, and her body language, the mise-en-scene helps in backing this up for example props ( as already mentioned) Lighting- matching the mood of the song and lyrics ie. introduction was low key lighting yet as it builds up to the big cresendo the lighting changes to more heavy key and full fronted.