Contacting The Band

After downloading the track of Jamendo I was in need of a lyric sheet for the song I intended to use. As the band didn’t have any lyric videos on YouTube I contacted them directly through Facebook. This way I was definite I could use the song and also have all the lyrics ready for my Music video proposal and later when filming the footage.

My Audience Profile

Researching my target audience

 For my music video I intend to aim it at an indie target audience.

The term indie rock, describes a genre of music founded through alternate rock that was first discovered in the 1980s. It main sense of ‘individuality’ came from the underground music scene, with artists signing with record labels who were very much individuals in the music industry. Their dedication to remaining unique and independent from other artists or genres of the time raised their popularity to create an indie culture with numerous subcultures, subgenres and fusion genres. This offspring of music in the late 1990s created multiple forms of indie, such as indie pop, grunge and lo-fi that is still appreciated today. This new identity not only influenced the music choice of its followers, but gave an overall style and attitude that these cultures and subcultures would be known for.

I intend to focus my study on one of the fusion genres of indie rock, known as indie folk. This unique genre first became popular in the late 1990s, when indie rock was influenced by the soulful sounds of country music. The unique mix of catchy personal lyrics with the soothing sounds an acoustic guitar creates relaxing contemporary listening for a new subculture people can identify themselves with.

Examples of indie folk music in the charts today are bands such as Bombay Bicycle Club, Of Monsters and Men, The Lumineers, as well as solo artists like Ben Howard and Jake Bugg. They each consist of music very much stripped back to basics, with main instruments including an acoustic guitar, double bass, banjos, drums and violins. They don’t include any synthetic sounding instruments or synthesisers. This relates to their iconography of a genre as a whole, the sound of their music being exactly the same as if they were playing live. The lack of over ambitious sounds and mixes creates a soulful experience, yet still something great to dance to.

People who refer to themselves as ‘indie’ carry a particular style, attitude and identity that reflect the music they preferably listen to. It is common to see people of this subculture mainly buy their clothes from Topshop and H&M, as well as include one off vintage pieces or charity shop purchases to create individuality in their look. They obviously listen to band and artists listed under the subgenre indie, with a particular fondness of going to gigs and festivals. Indie folk are more common as festival goers, wearing clothes infused with nature such as flower crowns and face paints to create artistic values in their look. They also convey a particular attitude of being quite care free, open for new experiences and experimenting in drugs and alcohol to have a good time. Outsiders of this identity sometimes state they are quite depressive and emotional due to the depth of lyrics some songs possess, yet this is down to personal opinion.

The song I have chosen ‘Stay Awake’ by The House of the Old Boat fall under the category of indie folk, so when making decisions of the genre and style of my music video, I will reference the identity of my target audience to influence my imagery.  

 

 

Music Video Analysis 2: Grouplove Tongue Tied

Music Video Analysis: Grouplove Tongue Tied

Music Video Analysis 1: Lucy Spraggan Beer Fear

Music Video Analysis: Lucy Spraggan Beer Fear

Music Video Practical Production Treatment: Stay Awake by The House of the Old Boat

This is the basic outline as to what my music video will look like. Here I list the visuals in conjunction with the lyrics, and as to how they may be filmed. It also differentiates between the narrative part of the video and the performance aspect of the band. I also give times throughout the song as to changes in scenes or locations. At the moment this is only a simple structure as to what my video will look like. Later I will plan each individual shots through a story board, but this acts as a structure as to the ideas and visuals I want to include.

The main story as part of the narrative I will get across to the audience will be the breakdown of a relationship. In chronological order, this will show a guy and girl meeting at school, going to a party together and becoming closer. Then we will see them on a date in a café, a beginning of a relationship forming. Through images of them singing with a record player in a garden or bedroom, it will show they are at the peak of happiness in their relationship. However there will then be in an introduction of another guy, in which the girl comes closer to and pushes her so called boyfriend away. We will see shots of them socialising with the existing boyfriend awkwardly behind, followed by numerous un replied texts from the girl. The boyfriend will then plan a surprise visit to his girlfriend at her house, but in doing so, will find her and this new guy making out. In frustration he will storm out of the house, this image followed by a sequence of shot of an argument between them and then the burning of a photo of the two of them. The end of the story will focus on the two at a park bench, in an emotional but uncomfortable situation of them parting ways.

However in my video I will use this story but portray it backwards, therefore starting with the broken relationship with visuals that pick up the pieces to see where it all went wrong. This is the reason my video practical production treatment shows it in the reverse order.

Match on action short film

To get a grip on editing for our final product of a music video, we were given the task to create a short film experimenting and developing our skills in match-on-action editing. Our brief was to create the scene of someone going through a door and crossing a room or corridor, with a minimum of 12 shots to document the movement. This was our final product:



We chose the location of a stair case leading to a corridor through a door. As part of the video it followed me running up the stairs, out the door and round the corner to mysteriously appear if I went through a normal door and came out a lift door. Before hand, we made a brief story board to decide what angles, camera positions and movement we would use to get a varied amount of shots documenting the movement. When it then came to filming, we used a tripod for most of our shots. This included numerous pan shots of me running, extreme close ups of me grabbing for the door, and a long shot of the staircase. We thought we would be more experimental for one of our final shots, with me holding the camera and running to give the perspective that the audience was in the same situation. It increased the tension and panic in the shot that would set the mood better when in editing.

Once we collected all our footage we started editing them in Adobe Premier Pro. Alongside our footage, we needed music to accompany it that would determine our editing style and pace. We went for the genre of horror/thriller that related to the reason of me running through the corridors. The length of each shot was therefore not only determined by the beat of the song, but the thriller experience we wanted to convey.

We also added some effects that contributed to the mood of the short film. We changed each of the frames to black and white to give a sinister effect. We also briefly reversed some of the footage at the end to appear as if the door was opening rather than closing. A dissolve to black helped with this when the focus of the camera was very close to the middle of the door, and at the end to finish the film.

From this activity I increased again in camera skills and post editing. Having to film numerous amount of shots for something that only lasted about 4 seconds seemed very elaborate to anything I had complied before, but showed me it paid off, giving the best result when creating an action sequence. It also enlightened me on the numerous angles and type of framing I could use in my own product, to create something professional like exiting music videos.

The techniques we used in editing also let me explore a wider range of skills. Adding effects after compiling our imagery proved effective in the overall atmosphere we wanted to convey, and introduced me to the range of possibilities that could be made on our footage. Not only was editing of the different frames to make a continuous movement a challenge, but adapting it to the music was also very insightful as how to set the right atmosphere even further. I had never previously considered this to be a necessary factor, yet doing so contributes well to the piece as a whole. I therefore plan to include this feature in my own final product.

Music Video Proposal: Stay Awake by The House of the Old Boat

Music Video Proposal: Stay Awake by The House of the Old Boat

This is the start of my music video proposal. it is an on-going process to fill in, as auditions have to be held for characters, as well as locations discovered, but this gives the general idea as to what my music video will entail.

 

Choosing a Song

Once we had been given the brief of creating a promotional package for the release of an album for an unsigned British band, it was my task to find a band I wanted to make a music video for. On the search for copyright free music, I came across jamendo.com. This website offered a wide range of unsigned artists with a variety of genres to choose from. In my head I wanted to create a video for a band that would suit my age group, which mainly meant I should focus on indie rock bands. I also have a knowledge in the area as it is a genre I like myself, therefore securing this as my choice of band or artist to choose. I listened to numerous tracks on the website, compiling a playlist of possibilities that would suit my genre, attract my idea of a target audience, and that I could imagine a music video working with. Here were some of the possibilities:

I finally decided upon using Stay Awake, by The House of the Old Boat. They are a London based indie folk band, produced and written on behalf of Jo Loin who frequently collaborate with multi-instrumentalist Catherine Masonas. They released this song as part of their debut self titled album, The House of the Old Boat.

I loved this song in particular due to the composition of the track, starting with the trumpet and simply building up in instruments with the guitar and drums. The song develops in a full circle of sound, hitting the climax towards the middle of the song that then levels out again towards the end of the track. The lyrics really came across strongly as to the emotion within writing the track, which is something I wanted to bring out through the imagery of the video. It is apparent they talk about a breakup in the song, which instantly gave me ideas whilst watching it.

What is a music video??

Music Video Directors: Ellis Bahl

There are a lot of directors around at the moment with work that I particularly like, yet one of my favourites is director Ellis Bahl. As a young director, he lives in Los Angeles, California and studied at Emerson College. After working at MTV networks as an associate producer, he now directs music videos for the likes of Alt J, Bank and SIR SLY.

 Alt J 'Breezeblocks'     

 BANKS 'This is what it feels like'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SIR SLY 'Gold'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

Big Sean 'Ashley'

 

Through watching a lot of his videos, it is apparent he is known for his darkened tonal ranges on shots and slow motioned frames that give each of his videos a sinister atmosphere that work well alongside deliberate underlying meanings. Also the emphasised use of close up shots and extreme close ups makes the audience identify with the characters, which reveals the true emotions of the characters in these harsh environments.


 Working with the artists above, he takes a wide range of genres on, but is now seen to be focusing on alternate indie tracks. Bahls work is quite underground at the moment, his directing on Alt J's 'Breezeblocks' being the first to be recognised due to the bands risen popularity. His unique style of filming was on this track is what is getting him noticed today, the whole narrative played in reverse of an abusive fight between a man and woman with references to the title of the song. This is a particular favourite of mine and what brought me to his attention because of this captivating way of filming.

 
His stylistic influences come from a lot of stop motion production, the simplicity yet effort that goes into every shot which makes the audience reflect on after they have watched it. He also takes influence from Alfred Hitchcock and Quentin Tarantino, some of the most well-known directors of film with a noticeable and intriguing way of filming that is reflected in his own work.


His videos mainly include just a narrative element to them, only few including actual performance shots. They mainly tend to focus on a maximum of three people in each video, as if we were just observing the life of someone else for this short space of time. To keep this narrative, he consistently uses continuity editing to keep a sense of time moving on in the story, which keeps the editing from shot to shot quite unnoticeable. He also tends to use match on action editing that portrays what the character is doing in detail which becomes apparent in the story telling.


I particularly like Ellis Bahls work for a number of reasons. I am particularly fond of videos that do take a narrative that connects with the song, and the way he portrays this really works. His use of a darkened filter on the shots increases the atmosphere of the scenes, and reflects the harsh environments these stories are conveying. I also like his use of slow motion that lets the audience view every minor detail in focus, and drags out the events that either shock or question the audiences idea of what is really happening. I will defiantly consider Bahls directing techniques in my own work, as they provide slick and intriguing videos to accompany alternative indie music.

 

 



 

Transition Music Video: Troublemaker by Olly Murs

As a start to our A2 course in media studies, our first task was to create a lip synch video of the Olly Murs song, 'Troublemaker'. This was a way to explore methods of filming and editing that would become relevant in our final music promo video. It took two days of filming and one day of editing to complete.

 

We got our main inspiration for the music video from the original Olly Murs trouble maker video. It was not necessarily a parody of the original, but we included elements such as the iconography of Olly murs (trilby hat and braces) and some of the camera angles and shots used. Our video was mainly a narrative performance video with lip synching throughout and direct attention and gaze towards the camera.

 

Before filming we planned the initial idea of what the video would take form as, casting ourselves as the role of Olly murs, and a friend Stephen Goldsmith as Flo Rida. We wanted to choose someone outgoing an enthusiastic for the role, and Stephen seemed most suited for this. We used a JVC camera and tripod for most of the shots, providing a steady view of the scenes and a clear image in the outcome. We set about filming round our college, using different locations that would create straight cuts in our video, still adding variation to our shots. In doing this, we also considered continuity in filming over the two days, keeping the same outfits consistent throughout the shots. We used a variety of shot, such as a long shot in the corridor scene, and a panning shot when walking down the slope. This video let us experiment with as many different shots and angles as possible, exploring our skills and concluding on whether this worked in the style of music video we wanted to create.

 

During editing we used many elements much like a professional music video to convey the look we wanted. Post editing gave us the opportunity to play with Adobe Premier Pro, get to grips with its different functions and effects we could include. Other than mainly straight cuts being the basis of each scene change, we used a variety of effects. Starting with a title screen, we also included a fade to a black screen at the end, and sped up motion in the middle that fitted the footage with the music. They may have been a basic selection of edits but it gave us an idea of the things that work or could be improved on for our official music promo.   

 

This introduction to filming and editing has given me confidence for the creation of my final product, now knowing what best and more things to explore in both filming styles and editing techniques.