Locations

Location 1: Road:

The first location that will be seen is the road. There will be a black floor with a white painted line to resemble the road. We will also moisten the road to give the illusion that it has been raining- this will reflect the light off the road and give an almost ‘magical’ feel, further developing the themes of our music video- light vs. dark and the afterlife and limbo- this opening scene was influenced by the song “The Day I Died” by Just Jack. Just Jack is an artist, who would share the same audience as Elina, so we are working on pre-existing ideas to ensure that our target audience will like the video. It will further appeal to our target audience because the fact that Elina has been hit by car relates to our audience VAL, “The Experiences”- they are young, enthusiastic, impulsive and rebellious. They seek variety and excitement, looking for the new, the offbeat and the risky, this nature relates to our video because our opening is an ambiguous opening by which the audience member can judge whether she is alive or not- this judgment is exciting and suits our VAL audience. Because the song isn’t a generic pop song, it is offbeat and unusual, the set parallels this as it is not the generic pop video.

Location 2: Black Walls with White Pictures:

The second location will be in the parallel world, which Elina is witnessing in limbo-, this means the set must be creepy, be quite warped, and not really have a trend to it. The black walls will be symbolizing the ‘nothingness’ of limbo, how there is no perception of anything- the white drawings and patterns are there to show the warped nature of limbo. The theme of black and white was chosen because black and white represents light and dark, life and death. The lack of color in them shows the bleakness of death and ho there is no color in death- and as our artist has seen death, she must fight her way out of limbo back into the real world. Influences of this idea from the music video “Fatty Boom Boom” by DieAntwood- where there are dancers in neon with a black background- representing life and death. It will appeal to our target audience because it relates to risk taking, life and death, and rebellion. This relates to Elina’s image because she is edgy and risky- like the theme of this music video.

Location 3: White Walls with Black Pictures:

Much like the location with black walls and white pictures, it represents the limbo between light and death, and will have drawings of limbo on it. But also, what can be said about both locations, is that we are sticking with the themes and routs of our artist, Elina, with her being Egyptian, the paintings on the walls, also reflect the traditional hieroglyphics of Egypt, which they would decorate the tombs of the Egyptian kings before they were buried to ensure they still had ‘life after death’- this directly relates to Dyers star theory as it is about rebellion and the ’27 club’, about living fast and dying young. This will further relate to our target audience because due to Elina being multicultural this will further attract an audience outside the West- where Elina’s single would be dropped. Moreover, the difference between the two ‘light and dark sets’, shows the confusion of whether she will be dying (the black set), or coming back to life (the white set).

Location 4: White Walls with Projection:

The fourth location is a simple white wall, by which Elina will be standing on and we will be projecting different images (both still and moving images) on her. We want to show another worldly element, showing life events outside the dancing sets- we will be displaying natural disasters, like forest fires, and thunder storms. We further want to display smaller things which represent life and death and the contrast between them- we want to show things like flowers dying, and then reversing them by coming back to life, dead animals which decompose and then coming back to life ect. This all relates to the theme of rebellion against death, and risk taking because she got into that state in the first place. This relates to Dyers star theory because it shares similar themes with the music video “We Found Love” by Rihanna. Where she is in a room with buildings falling down, and people partying projected on her- this works as an almost pre-sold element, where people will see this and make the connection between the two videos and like our artist because they like Rihanna (an artist who reflects Dyers theory exactly)

Location 5: The Wall of Lights:

Our last location will be a wall of lights. This will be a wall of blinders- this will firstly illuminate Elina’s face- making her look almost holy, again supporting our theme of life vs. death. But it also (in long shots), you will only see her silhouette, this firstly provides the image of almost a spirit, but also shows that she is not in her body, that the outline of her body is left on the ground where she was hit and her soul is awake and trying to avoid death. Then at the end of the video, all the lights will cut out except for two lights either side of Elina, resembling car horns. This will appeal to our target audience as they are all about excitement- and the fact that they see Elina getting hit by the car will not only shock them, but excite them as it is dramatic.

Entering the eye element

As previously mentioned, during our video, there will be an element where the camera zooms into Elina's eye as if entering her brain. This is montage from the popular TV series "Thats So Raven" displays the sort of shot we want for when Elina's eye is entered to show the parallel world at the beginning of our music video. We want it to show a sort of creepy, parallel, limbo world, so the colours will be darker and there will be no sound effects- but the camera and editing in this shows the general theme of which we want. This also relates to our target audience because they would be familiar with the show- and therefore, as it shares the same themes, it would act as a pre sold element for our music video.

Timeline

Detailed Concept

INTRO
The video will open with a birds eye shot of Elina (our performer) lying down flat on the street. As the music begins, bronze paint will move up her body, eventually her whole body will be covered in bronze paint. The camera will then zoom into Elina's eye as if we are entering her brain. This immediately sets Elina up as the star of the music video, it focuses on her body which reflects back to connections we made between Elina and Beyonce thus helping establish her star image and aligning her with iconic artists like Beyonce.


DANCE ELEMENT 1
This will be Leila dancing in a white room. She will be painted white and there will be black drawings on the walls. These drawings will be random patterns and pictures to give a sense of the chaos and confusion in this world. A key component of this particular genre of music is a dance routine. We have incorporated this into our video and expect it to help us reach our target audience.

DANCE ELEMENT 2
This will consist of Leila, Kalvin and Greg dancing in sync. This will be in a black room with white drawings of limbo and things that resemble death. They will be all be in black outfits painted black. There dance moves will be chaotic and disjointed in order to reflect the chaos and confusion of limbo. This element is similar to things that Azealia Banks has done in terms of the anger and aggression involved. There is also a sort of anti-authoritarian element in this which will help us reach our target audience.

PERFORMANCE ELEMENT 1
This will be Elina singing in a white room. We want to have projections on Elina - many different images and videos of things being destroyed. Natural disasters like forest fires, and things like flowers freezing and dying, animal attacks, skulls, road kill. We want to explore the themes of like and death and whether things really die, or if they are reincarnated. We will show clips of animals or road kill dying and disintegrating. Then we want to reverse this footage so that the audience does not know whether they are dying or coming back to life thus mirroring the themes of limbo. The natural disasters, animal attacks, death element is a current, interesting aspect and will intrigue and encourage our target audience to watch the video.


PERFORMANCE ELEMENT 2
This will be Elina performing the song in front of the blinders, We want two different states for this element. One is where the lights will intricately change to display different silhouettes. The second light state will be a full wall of lights where at the end all the lights will cut out except for two, these will resemble the headlights of the car which, implied at the beginning, Elina was hit by. The use of the blinders also allows the audience to focus less on the expressions of Elina and more on her movement and body language, suggesting that you loose your identity in limbo.

Rihanna: Elina star image

The first artist whose star theory will relate to Elina’s is Rihanna who is highly relevant in popular culture. Rihanna has been relevant since 2005 and is an R&B hip-hop artist who was born and raised in Barbados. By her growing up in Barbados she has been able to take her roots, and the sounds of her roots into her music. This parallels with our artist Elina, who’s Egyptian Arabic, and this is reflected in the music with Arabic influences, sounds and instruments. This will not only influence the song, but the costume and the backdrop to the music video. In Rihanna’s music video “Rude Boy”, she uses her Barbadian influences to intercept with the style of the music video. Including the colours, patterns and backdrops- this is something we will include in our music video. 

Further more, Rihanna’s star image is fairly sexual and her body is a huge part of her star image, she likes to reveal her body is a provocative way as opposed to a derogatory way, this inspired our music video as Elina as an artist is attractive and confident. This will not only relate to the female audience who will want to be her, it will attract to men- unifying the audience and expanding her fan base.

Lastly, her star image relates to Rihanna, as their production company will be similar to Rihanna’s, Def Jam Records, because it has an R&B feel, with rapping influences and dance music. Furthermore, Rihanna’s a dancer and uses her dancing a lot in her videos- as our music video is mainly based around dance, this relates highly to ours. 

Further themes of Rihanna's videos which we want to incorporate is the paint from the video "Umbrella", this silver paint gives the illusion of some surreal nature. Further more, we really want to incorporate the separated nature of images from Rihanna's "Rude Boy" video- as we are going for a mesh of dance and quick cuts it would work nicely in our video.

Rihanna is a stereotypical example of Dyer's Star Theory. One of Dyer's main aspects of a star is the way they are presented over-sexualised. Rihanna fits into this bracket, in most of her music videos, public appearances and concerts she is very scantly dressed, being in only small shorts and a crop top, or not even that. This over-sexualised nature of Rihanna is to ensure that her target audience does not stick to only females (who her music is targeted at), it is done so that males will watch her videos, and listen to her music. This nature will be use with Elina, as Elina looks like Rihanna, in shape, not a stick thin model, but a curvy, real woman, this nature will also be shown off, and not only expose her to females, but attract males, who will desire after her- attracting a larger target audience.

Azealia Banks: Elina star image

Azealia Banks is an American rapper, singer and songwriter. Banks has been praised by her "remarkable" rapping speed. In regards to her musical style, Banks has frequently been noted for the use of profanity in many of her songs. This builds on what Dyer refers to as an essential component of star image that of rebellion and anti-authoritarianism and links in with how we would like to present the star image of our artist Elina. 

Azealia is a strong independent woman who appears to do what she wants. Her image is that of someone who is somewhat confrontational, her lyrics convey her ambiguous sexuality and draw on another component of Dyer's theory, that of sexuality in an artist. Although we are not too concerned with representing an ambiguity, we still want are artist to have a sexual element that is going to appeal to our target audience. 

Since writing "212," Banks has adopted an alter-ego named "Yung Rapunxel." This alter-ego was adapted from Banks referring to herself as Rapunzel, due to a longweave she wore while working at Starbucks as a teenager. Banks discussed this with Rolling Stone saying, "Yung Rapunxel is that girl who pisses people off but doesn't really mean to. She's actually a sweetheart! But people are so taken aback that she's so herself; she's not even trying to be unique or different. 

The way in which we will create Elina's star image will be similar to how Dyer's theory explains Azealia Banks. We will portray Elina to be an independent, sassy woman, who does not let anybody get in her way. There is an element of profanity in Elina's image, and Dyer saw this as an essential component in what makes Banks, this highlights the similarities between them. Secondly, although the song that Elina is singing is not a rap song, it has an element of the singing pace rap includes, so this relates Elina to Azealia even more as they both sing the same style of music.

Elements of Banks' 'Yung Rapunxel' video are similar to things that we would like to incorporate in Elina's music video. The evident lack of colour in this music video is the same as what we have planned for our video, as this adds to the bizarreness of the video. Secondly, the weird elements, like in the first image, are very similar to things we want, as this would effectively show the audience that you are in a completely different place, such as limbo.

Nicole Sherzinger: Elina star image

Nicole Sherzinger as part of the Pussycat Dolls is what Negus would refer to as a synthetic artist, her songs are written for her by a production company, her band was put together by producers and they are manufactured by the industry and sold on their looks and they have choreographed dance routines. Additionally Dyer refers to the way in which a singer or artist should have a sexual appeal and a youthfulness that will attract the desired mainstream target audience. 

The music video, which Nicole has done, which influences ours is mainly “Jai Ho”, which is what she performed with the Pussy Cat Dolls. The main reason for this is the fact that the music has a very Indian influence like the Elina’s song. This not only effected her vocals with the Indian vibes and tones, it further influenced the dance routine- with the Indian style moved, we will be using movement with foreign influences to match the song. Other songs of hers also inspire our music video and relate to Elina because of the dancing style.
The Indian aspect gives the video an exotic flavour to the video, which helps it stand out and reach a wider target audience. Dyer discusses the way in which pop stars should be some what 'exotic' and unobtainable, we felt that by developing an Asian flavour we would add the element of the exotic. In terms or reaching a wider target audience, the Indian theme is very popular at the moment, due to the unusual-ness of it, thus more of the audience are intrigued. This element has been used in a few music videos and has helped broaden their target audience. 

Beyoncé: Elina star image

Most people regard musicians, especially female, as sexually exploiting, talentless girls who have made their way into the industry simply for their looks and the help of auto tune - Dyer would agree with this, suggesting that being a a star is no longer about the voice of the artist, but their image and style. Some could say that Beyonce applies to this theory, however, those people do not know Beyonce and what she stands for. Yes, I would agree that Beyonce has elements of Dyer's star theory, in the sense that her outfits on stage are fairly provocative and are sexual- however, this is Beyonce on stage, as her alter ego Sasha Fierce, if one were to simple see Beyonce as her stage performance, then yes, you may see her to be simply a diva, but when one takes the time to watch her off stage, see her interviews and self documentaries, you are able to see that she is so much more, she is humble, down to earth, giving and motherly. She is un noted for her charitability, as she does not do it for publicity, like Rihanna, she does it because she cares about it. This is what makes her an icon, over Rihanna and Mariah Carey, who have become sexualised, self obsessed artist, Beyonce has stayed grounded, stayed human- and this is why she has one of the largest fan bases of all time, loved by all. 

Beyonce is a global and the most successful artist of our time- she is a coloured woman who is all about the power of women and how woman are as important as men are. With Elina, her star image will be a very woman empowering style. As Beyonce in a curvy women, this suits Elina, who isn't the classic "skinny model" who is a singer- she is curvy, she is relatable, she is empowering towards girls who are not stick thin. This will increase her target audience as they are many women we see her being the shape she is, and feel like they can have an infinity with her- and relate to her. Furthermore, she is a dance artist- she created one of the most famous dances of all time with the “Single Ladies”- this is the impact we want to have for our video, we want it to become a very dance icon music video as dance is the main focus of the video. This will increase our target audience as the audience we will attract will not simply be people who are interested in the vocals, but the dancing as well. Further inspiration from Beyonce into our star is the fact she is an R&B style, with elements of foreign influence in many of her videos. This will further open up our target audience outside the 'Western World', these influences will attract a global audience. For example the song, “Baby Boy” the music has subtle undertone of Arabic music, and therefor became number 1 is many countries in the Eastern World. Furthermore the music video “Countdown” uses the element of double up of images- it evokes a very powerful shot, but also quite confusing, almost like a kaleidoscope. Further, and possibly the most relevant video of Beyonce’s is “Beautiful Liar” with Shakira- the undertones of the music have very Arabic themes, the tunes commonly heard in classic Arabic folk music. This relates to our music video which has very Arabic undertones.

Other elements of Beyonce which Elina can parallel with are Beyonce's style. Beyonce has a very street, very urban style, this will relate to our target audience and attracting our demographic- who will like music videos that have urban and street themes. 

New music video idea

Here is Molly's orgional idea in making her music video, this is the idea we are working from, we will develop the idea:

Feedback

After our presentation to our class, the feedback we received wasn’t exactly what we thought it was going to be. Initially we assumed that people would like our idea because we felt it was fairly ‘doable’, unlike many ideas, ours was fairly realistic, the idea of the party, the teenagers, but this was exactly what the group didn’t like. The first problem was the narrative- they felt that the narrative was ‘too’ narrative- he felt that the narrative was more like an episode of Skins than a music video- he felt that if you removed the music, it could pass as TV scene. When we showed  the parallel music video, which shares the same themes are our music video (Rihanna “We Found Love”), they thought that it wasn’t a good music video and raised the point that people only watch the music video because of Rihanna and not for the music video. 
             Secondly, it was thought that the theme of the music video was too clique, it was felt that the idea of the ‘party lifestyle’ was to generic and unoriginal,  we could do anything we wanted and the idea we chose could be anything- he felt that it was very ‘typical teens’ and we could have explored themes which we are less familiar with. Further, problems were raised when it came to the location- we needed a building which we would literally need to trash, Camilla suggested her sisters University flat but it would take a lot of work to make it look like there had been a proper party in it- we would need to spray paint walls, trash furniture and so on, and we couldn’t destroy a university flat because we would need to pay for the refurbishments which we do not have the budget for. What the group did like was the structure we had to the music video idea; we knew what we wanted shot by shot, scene by scene- we will keep this ethic of structure throughout the process of developing our music video.
Molly pitched her idea of her music video and the class liked this idea much more, they thought it was more creative and interesting to watch, so we are going to develop and work on this idea. 

Emily Tedrake

During todays lesson, Emily Tedrake who is a video commissioner from Polydor Records came into our class to dicuss her job and the responisbilites she has.

Polydor records is a record label owned by Unviersal Music Group based in the UK. Emily began her career by studying fine art painting at unitversity as she orgionally wanted to be a photographer. She then got an unpaid internship at Polydor and now, after seven years, works as their head of commissioning editing.

Emily commissions music videos for artists as big as Ellie Goulding & James Blake, she has also worked with Take That and Lana Del Rau. Emily begins her process by sending out requests to directors for treaments, with a small budget, she will usually ask 10 different directors. Emily pointed out that she will always make sure that the artist is in the video as it will help promote their star image and it is also important to synchronise the video with the image.

Emily then gave us an idea of how the music video commissioning process works:

The budget can vary from anything between £1,000 to £100,000, the budget is set by the record label based on how big the artist is, for example record sales and recouped monies. The music video is a promotional tool, a part of the marketing campaign and this money takes some time to get back, technically the artist should pay 50% of the budget back after they make sales from it.

Artists work on 360˚ deals, this is a deal between an artist and a music industry company where they agree to provide the finacial support for the artist not actually from selling the album but from singles, concerts and merchandise. 

An example of a video commissioning process is Ellie Goulding's 'Burn':

The process of this music video took between 1-2 months with a £60,000 budget. Initially Emily presented the treatment to Ellie Goulding, this is a collection of images which are used to explain the content of the idea. Adding specific references for the look of the video, explaining the specific location, analysing how you are going to shoot the video all makes the treatment clearer for presenting to the artist. Ellie Goulding's shoot took 15 hours, shooting from about 12pm to 3am and was shot on a military base in the UK where they were shut down at 3am; they shot the video at double the speed and then slowed it down in editing so that the filming process is quicker. The structure of this video worked really well as there was high energy and lots of colour, making the video exciting and interesting. 

A second video which Emily was involved in was James Blake's 'Overgrown':

Emily explained how this was one of her favourite videos to do, due to the simplicity of it. The video was shot in a studio in LA over 2 days with a budget of £30,000. The director of the music video was Nabil Elderkin who is a professional photographer, music video and film director. He is associated with Frank Ocean and Kanye West. There was lots of work done in post production, for example the scene filmed in the cabin was actually in the studio, they did this because they wanted the effect of time passing by and the lighting that would reflect this. The starry sky was also shot in post production. This highly contrasts to Ellie's video, which was high scale energy and colour.

Star Image of our artist

Music Video Development

A few days ago, within the group, we all pitched our ideas to one another, to then decide which one we believed would be the most appropriate to persue. Due to the impractility of my idea, we went with Sam's concept. This concept is like 'Skins meets fatal attraction" as we have a drunken messy night entwined with a violent romance. Rihanna is a big inspiration when developing our video, as many of her videos have a similar concept to the one we are going for.

This idea needs to be pitched tomorrow so we had to refine our idea to make the idea clearer as the presentation needs to be clear to pitch the idea so it will be invested in and wanted. Below are the posters prepared for our presentation. 

Music Video Tips & Guidelines

Today we got a visit from Luke who works in the media tech department, he came to give us some useful tips on how to make a successful music video:

• The essential idea of what we are doing is manufacturing a band for a song, and this will be that bands first release, and it is our job to make the video successful.
• We will start with the image of the band, ensuring that their style is fit for the style of the song and that they know how to play the instruments required so they can realistically mime the track. Then we can create a concept for the video that will blend well with the music.
• The band we are creating obviously has no fanbase, so it is up to us to get them out their via various marketing techniques and digipacks.
• The best type of music video contains three different narrative strants, a performance element which the label think is vital as it acts as a fail save. A lip sync element, just simply singing in a situation with very few props. Lastly, a narrative element, the story, which will be led by genre and style. The music video will then consist of constant cutting between these narrative strands, this keeps the video exciting and interesting. 
• We were adviced to make a 'Mood Film', this involves a set of images or a simple video to create a short film to demonstrate the ideas for the final product. This helps clarify the idea, and helps identify potential problems. 

After Luke gave us these tips, he showed us a webpage called Radar Music Videos. This is a site which helps up and coming artists find a director/producer to work on their music videos. 

Here is an example of a music video which was on radar and is now very successful. The reason this video was successful was because the video and the lyrics went well together, like at the begining where there is an electro beat in the music, the video shows some kids on DJ decks, so the picture at the track are working together to make an appropriate music video. As the band does not have a fanbase, they also use the webpage to promote the band as shown in the picture below the video.

The reason why these music videos are so successful is because of the technical aspect of the way that they are shot and editied. Luke also showed us this South African band called Die Antwoord, there music videos are very unusual and interesting but also very simple. All of the videos are linked by a colour scheme and symbolism. Most of them are technicallly shot flat on to the camera.


These tips have made it clear to me that it is essential for me to link together my video and the lyrics to the song, otherwise the video appears too random and unclear. Secondly, I think I will develop a 'Mood Video' because that will make shooting day simpler as I am unlikely to come across problems as I hopefully would have discovered them in the mood video. Lastly, I believe that it is vital that there are 3 narrative strands as that will make the video more interesting and it will prevent viewers getting bored.

Class Feedback

Yesterday I presented my 'prezi' presentation (from post beneath) to the class to see what they thought would improve the concept.
There were mixed opinions about the X-factor aspect to the video, some thought it was a great idea as it is like the artist is fighting for survival in the music world and the narrative world. But others thought that the whole X-factor idea has been way too overused and thus cannot be enjoyed. So I think I am still going to try incorporate this element, but I need to make sure that it is very different from the real world show so that people can enjoy the idea without feeling that its been done too often.
The whole class agreed that the Hunger Games element is a good addition to the video. They said that the idea was contemporary, relevant to todays culture and it will appeal to the target audience. Not only that, someone stated that the concept is likely to be successful and enjoyed by the public because the film was so successful. So I look forward to taking this idea further and working it in to make a great music video.
A negative bit of feedback was htat the whole idea seemed too impractical. The charriot and the stadium full of people ect... People just couldnt see how we could make it work. So I thought about it and spoke to some people and came up with the solution that we could just build a charriot, obviously it would not look very realistic, but the after effects can sort that issue out. Secondly with the crowd, we can fill a small area with some people and film that, and then we can dublicate the footage in order to make a stadium full of people.
A second bit of negative feedback was the use of filming in a field. Initially, on fliming day, a lot rides on the weather, if there is rain that will mean we cannot film there and we will be missing a chunk of our music video. Secondly, if the weather is ok, there will be a continuity problem due to the sun constantly changing places and the wind speed changing too. Lastly, the class couldnt see what the relevance was of her being outside, it is not clear and feels a bit irrelivant. After doing some thinking I decided that this part of the video will work better if filmed in a warehouse. This can resemble a slight battle arena/battle ground which applies to the song more.
The thought that the Kanye West image with the egyptian concept was really good. They thought the idea was unique and would make for an interesting and orgional music video. So I am going to incorperate this idea in the video, but I will adjust it a little in order to make it more relevant to the rest of the video, for an example, instead of using women to fill the space, I will use some typical egyptian things, like a sphinx.