Research: Early Storyboard

While I was away Adam and Kiel drew up a storyboard.

This was a fairly detailed representation of how our main idea would work, containg such notes as location, film techniques and characters.
Since this board we have all worked on a bigger and better storyboard with more details and a shot list to acompany it.

Research: Main Idea

The main idea has been centred around the song, we picked the song first then decided how we would build around the music and create a video. Much like real producers who first have a song then find a way to create an interesting music video .
The song is called "fraud" so we decided that we would have a main character who uses a mask he finds to conceal his identity and take on another persona in the form of a rebelious being who spreads his choas to others my giving them similar masks.
There has to be energy in the shot depicting the pent up emotions and rebelios feel that should emit from the people wearing the masks. In order to achieve this, the actors must show speed and energy in their movements which will match the song.

Our old idea, which sounded good at the time, was to use a flip book and draw the animations but we decided that this would be a tedious and time consuming project which had many editing and production problems.

I had an idea of using toys to animate it but much like the idea mentioned above it harboured the same problems, such as requiring around 30 frames per second in order to make a smooth animation.

Research: Target Audience

In order to grasp an idea of our target audience, I created a Questionaire out to 20 students at my school and 15 people outside my school.

The school questionare had 10 males and 10 females aged 16-19 and had several questions asking things such as what genres people listened to, whether they watched Music Videos and if so what channels, if they owned an iPod or any MP3 devices and how long the music should be and the like.

The questionare handed to 15 people outside the school involved 8 females and 7 males, aged 20-27. The questions were the same as the school version.

This type of research enabled me to gather the type of data I needed to determine my target audience and who we would need to 'sell' the music to. The main question that proved most useful to me and my group was the "Do you prefer highly edited flashy material for a music video, or a more natural raw version with less special effects?" It turns out the most favoured type was the one with the higher production values, it should be noted that people aged 16-19 preffered this whereas older participants didn't mind and often opted for the more simpler production.

People aged 16-19 seemed to want a music video tailored to their current generation and styles, they preffered it when the people in the video wore similar clothes to them and were representing a genre that they enjoyed.

People aged 20-27 voted for the same thing as the younger participants, and that includes an artist who they can relate to.

To conclude, the question was a valuble piece of data that has improved my research and given us the insight to decide how we will construct our production and most importantly who to distribute it to.

Research: Music Promo and choice of Music

We have chosen to use a song by "The Scarlet Harlets" who's main genre consists of 'Indie' and are an unsigned band. It's important to note that the type of song we have chosen is very upbeat and the images on screen in our production will have to mirror the pace of the song.

A Music promo is virtually the same concept as a music video and aims to 'promote' the band and their music. Ultimately the idea is to draw in an audience and produce sales in order to make a profit as media is a business.

Research: Andrew Goodwin Theory

Here is the Andrew Goodwin theory we did in class a few months ago.

• There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.
• There is a relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music.
• Genres are complex and diverse in terms of music videos style and iconography.
• Record companies will demand alot of close-ups of the main artist or vocalist.
• Voyeurism is present in many music videos, especially with the treatment of females but also in terms of systems of looking e.g. a screen within a screen, mirrors or cameras.
• There are likely to be intersexual references, either to other music videos or to films and TV texts, these provide further gratification and pleasure for the viewers/fans.

Research: Plans!

First off we will include an Album cover for our CD which will showcase the artist and their name, style, genre and image to promote the music i.e. our Digipak. Once we have decided on our ideas we will construct a website in order to promote the music video and advertise the band. Our research on music genre's, videos and conventions will enable us to meet our objectives thanks to all our planning. Our production should capture what we are aiming to achieve and the only way we can achieve our aim is through careful planning and taking our time to ensure we end up with a quality music video.

The Andrew Goodwin Theory

A while back we had to research the Andrew