My Final Idea - Storyboard

My Final Idea - Written

After editing the ending to my video due to the feedback of my focus group here is my final written up idea:

My overall idea for my promo video, is to show the main character waking up, and walking towards her mirror, as she looks into the mirror we get a close-up of her eyes, they look worn out and miserable, she closes her eyes whilst they are being focused on and as she does so, various clips are shown of her involved in fights with others, or being punched by another, along with clips of her arguing with an unidentified person. At this point the video comes back to her now, sitting at a desk writing some kind of letter, we are unaware of what the letter is yet, after trying to write this letter we see her eventually become distressed and upset. At this point we then see more rapid clips of her arguments and fights, she then gets up from the desk and gives up on writing the letter, she puts on a jacket, and walks out of the door. After she has left the house we then see various flashback clips again, this time however slow and not hectic, shots of her crying, or shots of her knuckles scarred, and grazed to show how much anger she has. We then once again see more scenes of anger, and her fighting, screaming arguing etc. The video then focuses on the main character again, walking through the streets with the weather appearing to be miserable and damp. An over the shoulder shot then reveals her to be looking at a photo as she is walking the streets, the camera zooms into the photo and as the camera then zooms back out we see the main character now standing in front of a fire and throwing the photo into the fire. The video now shows her still walking in the streets, until eventually she stops, looks both ways to see if there are any cars coming and then begins to walk into the road, once at the middle of the road, she lays down on her back and looks up at the night sky as the song slows (A final shot then reveals the letter she was writing and various words and phrases in the letter) the video then fades to black.

Testing The Idea

Now that I have my initial idea and initial storyboard, I decided to test the idea on members of my target audience, I devised a focus group of both boys and girls within the age range, an with similar hobbies and tastes as my intended audience. I gave them my storyboard to read over, as well as the written version so that they could fully grasp the idea of the video. I then asked for any relevant feedback they might have as to what was good about it, what they disliked, and most importantly if there were any ways in which they felt it could be improved,

 Here were the comments and feedback from the focus group:

"I like the idea of going from on set of clips to another, but I think it might confusing when you watch it, its hard to tell, it might work when its all put together with the song"

"It seems like a very dark idea, but since the song its also it fits really well"

"The idea is very depressing, but videos for rock videos often are a bit dark and depressing so, i like it, it fits the genre well"

"I do like the fact that you get to see this overall story develop throughout the song, mainly through the versus of the song"

"I think one way you could improve it would be, to have more people in it, the only other people in it are just brief clips by the look of it, and you've only got this one main character, just develop some of the scenes with the other characters in a bit more"

"I like the idea that the pace of the scenes and shots will reflect the pace of the song, like fast and rapid at the chorus and slow and steady at the versus"

"I think the ending needs work, we don't ever see whats in that letter shes writing so i think instead of it just ending with her in the road, it should go back to the letter or something"

From testing the idea I have decided to slightly edit the ending of the video based on one of the ideas from the focus group I really liked the idea from this final comment, I think it would be a much better way of ending the video, it round it off by showing the audience the letter and revealing its content and makes it more clear what she is doing.

My Initial idea - Written

Initial Written Up Idea

My overall idea for my promo video, is to show the main character waking up, and walking towards her mirror, as she looks into the mirror we get a close-up of her eyes, they look worn out and miserable, she closes her eyes whilst they are being focused on and as she does so, various clips are shown of her involved in fights with others, or being punched by another, along with clips of her arguing with an unidentified person (These scenes will be suggested to be past experiences and memories).At this point the video comes back to her now, sitting at a desk writing some kind of letter, we are unaware of what the letter is yet, after trying to write this letter we see her eventually become distressed and upset. At this point we then see more rapid clips of her arguments and fights, she then gets up from the desk and gives up on writing the letter, she puts on a jacket, and walks out of the door. After she has left the house we then see various flashback clips again, this time however slow and not hectic, shots of her crying, or shots of her knuckles scarred, and grazed to show how much anger she has. We then once again see more scenes of anger, and her fighting, screaming arguing etc. The video then focuses on the main character again, walking through the streets with the weather appearing to be miserable and damp. An over the shoulder shot then reveals her to be looking at a photo as she is walking the streets, the camera zooms into the photo and as the camera then zooms back out we see the main character now standing in front of a fire and throwing the photo into the fire. The video now shows her still walking in the streets, until eventually she stops, looks both ways to see if there are any cars coming and then begins to walk into the road, once at the middle of the road, she lays down on her back and looks up at the night sky as the song slows and ends.

My Initial Idea - Storyboard

Mood Board Of Idea

Breaking The Song Up

Because songs are split into sections e.g. versus, chorus, bridge, and all of these different sections tell the story of the song and more importantly are at different tempos, I have split my song into these sections to get a better idea of what scenes should be placed within the song:

Now that I have decided which sections of the song are going to be used for and which sections of the song will show what, I can now begin work on an initial storyboard using this information.

My Idea In Relation To Hartley's Theory

I do agree with this theory, in that it can potentially limit the creativity of a media producer, not completely but every producer has conventions to follow as genres provide direction for the producers, even if a producer is very innovative with their ideas they will have unconscionably pandered to audiences expectations, they will have picked up on these typical conventions of the genre they are creating and used them within their own text. 

My genre is alternative/rock, I too have pandered to the audiences expectations of what they will see in a typical rock video, in that it is dark and gloomy, features very dark story lines  with little more no performance based elements like dance routines, that would be seen more typically in pop videos, I previously researched the different types of video genre not just my own and it was apparent that each type of genre in music has its own conventions and set of rules that need to be followed in order for it to be accepted be its audience, my own video idea follows the rules that were already in place for my videos genre so the rock genre did limit my creativity in that It would have been out of place for my video to contain a dance routine, or a peaceful sunny meadow scene because it would not meet the audience expectations

My Idea In Relation To Goodwins Theory

So that I can understand the meaning of the song better, I have looked more in-depth at the lyrics, and looked at how my initial ideas may link to Goodwins theory of the music video characteristics.

Researching Shots & Sounds

Letter Of Copyright Permission

In order to get permission from the record company responsible for the production of the track I want to use, I wrote a letter to them requesting permission in order to not break copyright laws when making my promotional video:

Intertextuality In Music Videos

Similar to representations and stereotyping in music videos, the use of Intertextuality allows the audience to engage and connect with a media text. Intertextuality is when one media text is referred to in another. Intertextuality is a good way to attract an audience, even the simplest and smallest things can help to attract an audience, it can make the audience laugh of the Intertextuality is used for comedy effect, or it can make the media text more relatable, or simply help to make the media text stick in the mind of the audience. This is something I will heavily take into account when I produce my own video, I will be be aware of possible scenes or clips that could use intertextual reference.

Representations In Music Videos

Representation refers to the construction of aspects of reality within certain media forms. One being the music video. Different media producers will pick out aspects of reality in everyday life and reshape and recreate them within their media text to suit current trends in society. To do this producers rely on stereotypes to relate their media text to its audience. In fact Medhurst (1995) - Suggested that stereotypes can be seen as a type of media shorthand, that provide an easy point of contact when a media text needs to connect with an audience.

Common Representations of Women in Media:

 The Mother

 The Housewife

 The Sex Object

 The Damsel in Distress

 Weak

 Body Conscious

Common  Representations of Women in Media:

The Hero

The Hard Worker

Strong & Tough

Aggressive

Common Representations Of Teenagers in Media:

 Lazy

 Drug Consumers

Violent

Anti-social

It is sometimes argued that it isn't the medias use of stereotypes that is the problem, as they often contain elements of the truth, but the audiences assumption that the representation can be applied to all members of a particular group. Teenagers are often portrayed in certain ways in music videos, as this allows man of its key audience members who primarily are teenagers themselves to connect with the media text but this does not men this representation applies to all teenagers.

Chosen Song

The song  I have chosen to create a music videos and digipak for is Broken bones by Birds of Tokyo as I feel this song is very varied, certain parts of the song are slow and others are more fast and powerful whihc allows me to incorporate different kinds of scenes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5p4OS-iqgU

Possible Song Choices

My Possible Song Choices:

v  Never Change – Fightstar

v  Broken Bones – Birds Of Tokyo

v  Intro – The XX

v  Through The Glass – Stone Sour

These are my initial song choices, as they are all songs I feel I would be able to create a narrative to and the pace of each is diverse to include different shot types and effects, they also have a very clear tone and feel to them that I think I would be able to create for the music video to accompany it.

My Chosen Video Type

Through analysis of the different type of music videos available and a questionnaire analysis from many of my target audience I have decided that my chosen video genre type will be indie/Alternative.

1.    Through the results of my questionnaire I found that many people feel that a storyline in a music video is important If not vital, many feel that simple dance routines and clips of an artist is very boring and does not show an artist passion for music.

2.    After analysing many types of music videos. I feel because I have limited resources as a media student that a pop video or heavy rock video would be very difficult. The Indie/Alternative videos I looked at showed very simply and easily accessible props, locations and costume. Whereas the pop and rock videos I looked at use very extravagant locations ect, rock videos in particular use well known settings this is something that would be difficult to recreate as an a level student.

Questionnaire Results

I have found various piece of information that I think I will find very useful in determining not only what my chosen video type is going to be, but how to make it a better music video.

The results of the questionnaire have shown me that people feel that a storyline is very important in a music video, although some said they did like a performance orientated video the narrative orientated videos were the most interesting. When I asked members of my audience if they had anything extra to say many of them stated that a narrative is vital to them as a dance performance video gave off the impression not much thought had gone into it. However this also showed me that some people feel that music videos are “too depressing” and need to be more fun, this will help me try to stay away from making a video that is considered “too depressing” for its audience.

The results also showed me that Pop, rock & Indie are the most popular styles of music listened to these days. This will prove very helpful in making my final decision on what genre to choose.

The results have pointed out that dance routines in videos are highly disliked, and that the appearance of the band is favoured but not vital.

Many people said that the setting of a music video is very important; this is something I will highly take into account when planning my music video.

Video Type Questionnaire

In order to help me choose the right genre of music video to create, as well as researching the different type, I decided to get some input from my potential audience and devised a questionnaire that will help me establish not only what kind of music video to do but what is should contain.

Q1. What type of music do you listen to?

Pop             Indie            Rock           R&B            Classical               Rap

Q2. Do you often watch music videos?

Yes, all the time     Sometimes, if I really like the song      No, never

Q3. Do you prefer music videos with or without a story?

Definitely with                 Half & Half             Definitely without

Q4. Do you think that a songs music video is important?

Yes, very              A little                   No, not at all

Q5. Do you feel that a songs storyline must be 100% reflective of the song’s lyrics?

Yes             No, not really

Q6. Do you think an artist of a song should be featured in a music video?

Yes             A little                   No              

Q7. Do you enjoy dance routines in music videos?

Yes, a lot               Sometimes, not the whole video          No, never

Q8. If a songs music video is not to your liking does it put you off the song?

Yes, always           A little                   No, not at all

Q9. Do you feel the setting of a music video is important?

Yes, very              A little                   Not really

Any extra information I obtained…

“I think music videos these days aren’t focused enough around the actual song”

“Music videos are just about attracting an audience now and not telling a story”

“Artists don’t put enough effort into their videos, you can tell they had no involvement in it and just did a little bit of dancing”

 “Some music videos are too depressing, music is supposed to make you happy”

“Some videos are too focused on creating an in-depth story, they should be fun”

“Music videos should have a bit of everything, acting, storylines, and the band should be in it a little and it if possible dancing too”

Types Of Music Videos