Planning - Date of filming

Last week, due to unforeseen circumstances, our lead singer couldn't go to Brighton. Therefore, we are trying to re-plan this carefully in order to be able to film during half-term. 

We have booked the equipment until next Thursday, which leaves us 5 days. However, with the current weather condition, this does not leave us a lot of time!

Our lead singer wasn't available during the week-end, as it was too short notice for her to get a cover. However, she is available on Monday and probably on Tuesday. (To be confirmed tomorrow)

If our main singer cannot make it on Tuesday, our back up singer will be available to film on Wednesday.

Forecast the MetOffice

Forecast from the BBC

Unfortunately, most of our group aren't available to film on Monday. It is important that everyone's input is considered, therefore we will film on Tuesday or Wednesday and consider Monday as a last resort.


Although there's a chance of heavy rain on Tuesday, they do say there will be some sunny spells. We don't think there's a lot of chance of that happening but we do hope the rain will at least clear off. 

The fact that we have planned everything carefully allows us to tackle any of the problems we encountered so far.

So, just a little summary...

We are planning to film on either:

• Tuesday 25th October
• Wednesday 26th October
• Monday 24 October (Last resort)

UPDATE - Our main performer has confirmed she will be available on Tuesday 25th October.

Research: Music videos

Recently, The Saturdays have released a new music video for their new single. There are some elements of the video that I think will fit well with our video. Although the video is set in the isolated land of Norway, I like the use of establishing shots of the setting with the singers in the centre. There are several establishing shots of each singer within different backgrounds throughout the song. Each individuals outfits are different in terms of colour, style etc. but yet similar in design. This is one of my favourite videos at the moment and has already hit 543,966 views on YouTube despite being released just a week ago.

Cancellation of tomorrow's trip to Brighton

There have been a change of plans for tomorrow; our lead singer cannot make it due to an important appointment therefore we will reschedule our trip to Brighton for the half term. In the mean time, we will be planning the filming so that when the time comes we will be fully prepared.

Me (Natalie) and Danielle are planning to meet up with our soloist to choose several outfits for filming seeing as we now have the time to do so. And of course, we will be blogging regularly throughout the half term.

See you all soon ;)

Research: Cher Lloyd's Swagger Jagger music video

Whilst researching on you tube we came across Cher Lloyd's Swagger Jagger music video and noticed some of the editing such as the one in the gif above. The lyrics on the screen is something that we plan to incorporate into our music video.
Also whilts we were on Cher Lloydd's Vevo page we found a video of behind the scenes  of the swagger jagger video where there is a interactive feature where viewers can choose which  interviews they would like from the video's director  to stylists .

Research: second version of the music video

Whilst's doing some research on you tube we came across this version of the VV Brown shark in the water song being used  for  promotional use for a canadian teen drama called Degrassi . The whole cast of the TV show aswell as VV Brown appear in the video , It was aired on a TV channel called Teen Nickelodeon in the US .

The main audience for this channel and the program is teens most who are probably  unfamiliar with VV so this promo so this  could be seen as a strategy by her record company to expose her to a potential new fan base .

Planning - Permission request to film in Brighton

We couldn't find a direct e-mail for brighton council but we have managed to find an online contact form.

Planning: possible names for artist

Last week when I got home me and my sister came up with several female names and surnames for our artist. Here are the ones we came up with:

• Alexis Riley
• Charley Cole
• Courtney Clay
• Courtney Hay
• Melody Johnson
• Abbey
• Blake / Blakeley
• Carly
• Charlene
• Eve

My sister was particularly fond of name Courtney but I preferred Blake as it is short, simple and unusual. Although some names did not include surnames, we tried mix and matching different names to different surnames. However, when I suggested these names to my group, they said that they wanted to stick to our first choice: Charlotte Cole. Our chosen name is an actual name of our back-up therefore we will stick with it. Final name choice:

• Charlotte Cole

Wordle: words associated with our music video

How the Music Industry uses Social Networking Sites

Artists use social networking sites to promote their new products, singles, concerts. Myspace is one of the social networking sites that help to introduce a new artist to the public. Here are examples of artists that used social networking sites to establish their fan base:

Pixie Lott

Adele

Hurts

Kate Nash

http://www.myspace.com/pixiesongs 

http://www.myspace.com/adelelondon

http://www.myspace.com/ithurts

http://www.myspace.com/katenashmusic

Similar to the original artist we will also be using social networking sites tor promote our artist such as the Facebook page above. 

PLANNING: Permission for students to film and Weather check

We decided to take the precaution of checking the weather forecast for Brighton your day of filming:

 ( Wednesday  highlighted )

PLANNING: Influential Music Videos

Those two videos inspired us to visualize lyrics in our music video. The video by Wretch 32 gave us an idea to illustrate the video by drawing images on the wall or on a piece of A1 paper.

We also thought about writing the lyrics on cardboard or paper and ask public to hold them up like in this video made by previous students. We decided to edit the lyrics into the video later on (like in the video of Good Life by Kanye West) because it would suit the genre better.

Another two videos shows a different editing style that we wanted to use. Split screen will make the video more eye-catching and interesting to watch. 

PLANNING: Examine Website For Original Artist

I have took screen shots of what i think are important parts of V V Brown official home website. There is the first thing that you see which is the banner showing the artist on a pink background and the artists name in a sans serif font, really bold and "hard" which contrasts with the pink background showing V V's femininity and the font showing that she is serious and contrasts the male gaze in a way.  

The second screen grab shows a picture of the artists with radio presenters and her making funny faces. This shows her personality which makes her more personal and connect withe the audience more.

The last screen shot shows the artist's recent activities and twitter friends which shows that the artist is listening to her fans and that she cares about what they think.

PLANNING: Analysis Of Original Video

V V Brown's music video is an example of disjuncture and amplification by showing a different side of the song. V V Brown is the focus of the video, so the video fulfils its main purpose of advertising the artis and its new album.single. The video consists of the artist walking around a river, roads and sitting in a coffe shop. It has many close ups and middle shots which shows off the artist very well, we will use this in our video because it advertises the artist well.

In our video we will illustrate the song a bit more by filming at a sea side. We would also have a bit of narrative which shows the artist having a good day at the beach from arrival by a bus to the end.
We will try and implement lyrics in the video and we will use many close ups and ECU. Some of them will be used simultaneously if we use tailing where many shots at once.

PLANNING: Storyboard Draft

Here are two pages of our draft storyboard showing few scenes from the first verse and a bit of chorus. More to come in a near future

Planning: three influential music videos

During our planning lessons, our teacher Rebecca showed us a video that uses some of the techniques that we want for our music video. After watching it, I felt the music video was very influential in terms of lyrical editing. As my group are aiming for a simple video with various editing techniques, written or animated lyrics will suit the genre and setting of our song. Although we may not have the equipment for that particular technique, I feel quite inspired by the two videos below that add lyrics through editing:

Every Teardrop is a Waterfall by Coldplay

Hey, Soul Sister by Train

I have come across this song before but it was only today that I realised the video could be quite influential towards our own video. I love how the video is set in what looks like a typically popular street in America with typical props to suit the setting (e.g. umbrella used when raining). As our video will be set in Brighton, all the props we need will be around us and possibly quite busy. The video also includes a carousel scene in which we are also planning to film at Brighton; although the singer has gone for the dreamy land theme, I like the way she walks around the carousel while it is moving and the background is blurred whenever there is a still shot of her (2:18-2:33) but the setting is still obvious. Here is the video below:

Forgive Me by Leona Lewis

At the moment, my group is unsure whether we should include split screens in the editing to make it look more interesting. I find the video below is a great example of a split screen video as both shots pans across the room in opposite directions then meet/merge together. Here is the video below:

Three Words by Cheryl Cole

Planning: examining the artist's website

Considering that VV Brown is the original artist for our chosen song, I browsed her website http://www.vvbrown.com/ to analyse how she promotes her music.

As I have noticed in all musical artists fan sites, there is always a large picture of the artist at the top including their name. The use of the picture, colour and font is how the artist represents herself through the Internet such as on Facebook, YouTube etc. The representation of the artist reflects the genre and attracts a specific group of fans, for example, the use of the colour pink may aim to attract more female fans. The repetition helps to promote her music as her image will become more recognisable.

At the top of most websites are usually advertisements of other websites but on VV's website advertises users to download her latest single on iTunes and does not change to other ads. This is one of the ways she uses to promote her music.

Scrolling down her homepage are her blogs, which tell her fans what she is currently working on or just pictures of her trip to the radio station. Her passion for music shines through every blog as they are all music related information. Her blogs are updated every week.

At the bottom of every blog and pictures from the gallery, includes small buttons connected to social networking sites for users to directly get involved, get their views across and share whatever they are on to friends and family. This may help her with promotion in the future.

Above is a list of locations of VV's live gigs which are also directly linked to social sites. Although this is the website of the artist, the fans are very involved through the site. This is what VV is aiming for: devoted fans and spreading the word that she is serious about her music.

 

Finally, there is a video section on her website which include all the music videos she has released with the most recent at the top. Devoted VV fan's will not have to go elsewhere for all things VV Brown. Below is her social bar (links) which is just below her large image. This is very important as they are links of social sites that are related to the artist for fans. Even her clothing line VV Vintage is on the bar for those who love her sense of style as well as her music.

Overall, promotion of the artist on the Internet is very important as it is the most fastest, quickest and easiest way to communicate with the world therefore our artist will only promote her music through Internet. I feel that album's and EP's are no longer as successful as they once were.

VV Brown on Facebook

VV Brown on Myspace

VV Brown on Twitter

VV Vintage

 All screen shots taken from http://www.vvbrown.com/ or links

Planning - Website analysis

This is V V Brown's website. We can clearly see a repetitive use of her image, which is used to emphasise the fact that she is serious about her music. This is also true when you look at the simplistic layout of the website and the font used.

The pink color used for the header and the advert banner emphasises her feminity. 

In the video section, we can see her latest promo and music videos. At the bottom of each, a direct link to Facebook, Twitter and Google+ which allows the visitor to instantly share the video he's watching.

This is important, as it will engage V V Brown's videos to the visitor's social life.

 

This is located right under the header. Which immediately suggests that the focus is on the social media, which are all styled in a similar way. (see screen shots below)

V V Brown's Facebook page

V V Brown's Twitter

And finally, her My Space page.

Repetitive imagery is used to help promote her latest single. The visitors will therefore remember the style and will recognise it when they'll visit a CD store. It will stand out, as they know about it already.

Planning - 3 videos that influenced our planning

Example - Kickstarts is the first video that influenced our planning. Although we are not quite sure if this idea will be used in our final edit, we are thinking of using split screens.

Although the mise en scène doesn't change very much in this video, the fast editing and the wide range of shots used helps to keep the audience focused; which is something we would like to achieve.

Another video which influenced our planning is Kanye West - Good Life.
The main reason why this video influenced our planning is because of the use of lyrics in their video. They have included them and animated them in rhythm with the music, which is something we would really like to use in our chorus.

Finally, the third video that inspired me was SALM - Rondo Parisiano. In this video (from 0:30 to 0:43) they use a carousel as one of their filming location. The shots and the angle used will inspire us and help us for when we will film on the carousel. Also, there is some great slow motion and "fast" motion in there which is what we would like to use in our video.

Planning - Analysis of the original video

V V Brown discovers that her boyfriend is cheating on her (the “shark” being the girl he is cheating on her with). This is the narrative of the original video.

This video uses a great range of shots and mise en scenes.  Many aspects of Andrew Goodwin’s theory were used in this video; she is both the narrator and the character, the video is built around the song and the singer very often looks directly towards the camera.

Although this video has conventional elements of a music video, the fact that she looks directly at the camera is rather unusual in this case. In this “heartbroken” type of songs, the video often shows the singer being depressed and weak, whereas here she looks rather detached from what is happening and strong.

Our video will be different in many ways.

• The location

Our video will be set at the sea side and will only be filmed outdoors.

• The narrative

There won't be any kind of narrative in our video, as it will mainly use disjuncture.

• Stronger editing

We are planning to include some parts of the lyrics in our video.

•  No props

In the original video, the use of props is strong (the old fashioned Hi-Fi, the pictures, the hat, the chain, etc). We are not planning to use any props in our video.

• No band

Unlike the original video, whereas one of their base track is involving her band, the only person who will feature in our video will be the singer.