Institution request letter

This letter simply asks the record company that owns the copyrights to the song we're using to allow us to use their song in our video. This letter has been sent directly to Germany to be considered by Lichdicht Records who currently own the rights to Stolen Dance by Milky Chance. A reply is supposedly very rare in this industry therefore if we do not gain a sufficient reply we will take it as an acceptance for us to be allowed to use their media for ours. We feel very privileged either way to be using Stolen Dance for our media as it is a fantastic song that has been created to the highest standard which is no shock to Lichdicht.

14th December, 2015: Checking-in

Updating on where my partner and I are within the process of creating our music video. We have finally come onto the filming stage of the process; we have our storyboard set, our timings right and are ready to go and film. Sadly, our actors for our main roles of the boy and the girl have been busy, so we've been making dates and ensuring that they are free in time to film. No film has been recorded fully yet as we've had to sum-up our final storyboard which took up a lot of time. By the new year, we will hopefully have a start to the music video; and sufficient footage to begin editing.

Where are we at the moment: Casting

Within the process of the creation of our final music video, my team and I thought we'd begin casting for the characters of our music video. At the moment we've filmed around four-five possible candidates to play the main girl and the main boy. Within this process we ask specific questions to gain an idea of the mind behind the actors that came to our casting session, then we will have a discussion to choose the best ones for the job. I feel this task has not only helped with the production and creative side of our music video, but also put us into the right state of mind to begin producing our final product.

This video that has been attached is simply a snippet video to give you an idea of what our casting session looked like. By looking at the visuals of the interview and listening along to the song, one can gain an idea of which candidate would look best in front of the camera as the face of our music video. Within this particular video, we've introduced four candidates, two boys and two girls, who we feel could be used as possible candidates for our final piece. Enjoy!

Storyboard to music-video

After finishing our storyboard for the full music video; we decided to put the whole narrative to the song we would used to see, in retrospect, what the final result would look like. We came across a few complications through this task which we've amended or are in the process of amending but this video shows the 'skeleton' of the video.

Our first problem there were two variations of the song; one which last for around 3.30 minutes and another album version that last for around 5.20 minutes, but we decided to go for the shorter version otherwise the video could easily become boring. In doing this, our narrative surpassed 3.30 minutes and we came to near enough 4.45 mins which is too long; therefore our first amendment is to cut some of the scenes by a few seconds to fit the song. Our other problem was that the version of our song that we chose of 3.30 minutes was too short for our storyboard, therefore we ended up using the 5.20 minutes version so we could cut it to size; now our problem to be amended lies within the timing of the video and when to end it! These problems are currently being fixed; but this video is the snip-it that we've produced like a form of 'teaser' trailer.

Cut to the beat

The task at hand was to cut a whole load of video clips to the beat of a song of our choice. In my I decided an EDM based song was a good place to start as it has a set beat and little words, therefore I chose Wish You Were Mine by Phillip George. Then I thought that I should stick to a particular theme because in my final music video I too will have to stick to the theme of my pre-made narrative; therefore I chose disney clips because there's a vast majority, all with unique yet similar storyline's. This task was a good way to test my skills with final cut as well as try and set our minds on who in our group will be the best to do the editing for our video.

Idiots guide to storyboarding

We created this idiots guide to storyboarding as this is the process that we've started in our production work. This has also been created because storyboarding is a crucial part of production but not always everyones favourite task, therefore with this guide; future producer's can understand why this work maybe boring, but is severely important. In the beginning of production, I was put into a group where we had to create a swede. A swede is essentially a reproduction of a popular music video but with less props and less production value. In relation to this post; our storyboard was not just insufficient, but it wasn't at all finished or detailed. To make a long story short, without a proper storyboard we were always flicking back to the original music video and we never really knew what to shoot! Our final product was not only lacking value, but it also had a few missing clips because we were vague with our memory of the original video; this experience really taught me the value of a storyboard.

Target Audience Avatar

These avatars were made to represent my target audience of 18-24 year olds. This age range is meant to represent students/university styled age. These avatars will give my team a brief idea of the audience we are trying to capture, but also remind us of who we are creating this music video for. These avatars are obviously very vague, however we can ensure that our music video sticks to our target audiences criteria by ensuring that our music video masks the overall characteristics of these two characters. To explain:

• The Male-Looks young, has branded clothes and a period styled haircut that could be considered in style.
• The Female character-Looks ready to go out, has modern clothing and seems calm and content

Characteristically speaking, the male avatar like is masked to our main character. This character is out spoken, charming, innocent, funny and excitable. The female character is smart, cheeky, well-spoken and witty. These character have been chosen because their characteristics are all unique and interesting; which makes it easy to sculpt them to their acting roles as they will need to play emotional characters whoa re constantly going through their ups and downs of their relationship.

Record Label Research

Lichtdicht records had limited information about themselves and their philosophy about what they strive to do for their clients/bands. Their philosophy in a nutshell is: Lichtdicht strive to express the importance of indie bands, as well as push smaller/unknown bands to gain their potential in the entertainment business. I feel this information will help with the research into the story behind our music video as we will want to copy the idealism behind the record company; but include our own morals and philosophy that we will keep to during production.

Initial idea's

The task at hand in our teams; was to create and discuss three initial ideas that we would take forward  to use for our narrative within our music video. Within my team; Rosie worked on one idea and I worked on another, then together on my Prezi we came together to create a third and final idea. With these we worked out with our teachers which was the best to do that would be both enjoyable to film and create, but also which would seem better to do as a link up with the music. Moving forward, this should help my team stay on track with the vague outline of the narrative, as it can become easy to forget the emotion, characters and storyline of our narrative. From this task, I learned to dissect an idea into classified groups, as well as improve my decisions making skills within group. There are only two of us in my group; but it helped us both learn to agree and disagree with each other strategically enough to come-out with three ideas and nail it down to one.

Target Audience Research and Demography

The importance of researching target audience lies purely with production. If you are oblivious to having a target market then your product won't fit society. Forbes magazine explains that target audiences know whether they're going to enjoy something or not, this leads to reviews on social media expressing their views. My target audience of teenagers was chosen because our genre is in a niche category that can be easily mistaken for a mass market. Therefore the use of having teenagers to target creates clear media coverage and enjoyment.

Feedback

It was crucial that we chose a song for our final product. However, if it's only the creators that like their creation; then what's the point. We went to find people who'd be in our target market and showed them the original video to 'Stolen Dance' by Milky Chance to engage in their reactions and receive their feedback about the song and what the song's about. Here are their answers. All four enjoyed the song but believed that the current video didn't do its justice as the video is 'plain'. Therefore making the song seem plain. Moreover, this has given us the idea that our video needs to be consistent and unique otherwise the song will feel plain.  By 'plain'; they meant that the song and its video was lacking both entertainment and aesthetics. Therefore to amend this in our video; we hope to allow the video to become more exciting and lively as music video's are a form of entertainment for people to enjoy, as well as relating specifically to our target audience both emotionally and physically.

Who are Milky Chance?

This Piktochart was our first step into the world of our chosen songs band. This band was interesting to research as they're back story explains the reasoning behind their songs. Throughout this task; I learnt that the narrative's behind music can come from anywhere, whether it's a deep emotional struggle, or drafted from a perceived dream.

Our Genre's Sub-Genre's

This Wordle represents the many sub-genres that our genre is linked with. Outline in the largest font is the genre of 'FOLK' which is where ours began. Our sub-genre is the next largest word: 'PSYCHEDELIC FOLK' which is the genre that Milky Chance work on. I'm using this to research other possible competitors we may have because with many sub-genre's comes many different songs that people have created.

Competitors

These wordle's represent the many competitors that produce music for artists every day. The first is of the top recorders in the world including 'Butch Vig' and 'Dr.Dre'. I've added these to show all the talent that is produced yearly and the people that make it happen. When I finish my final product I will have to create my own record label name to add to my digipak. With these wordle's I can see the range of names and companies that produce my artists type of music.

Chosen Song!!!!!!

The song for my final product/music video has finally been chosen! Stolen Dance by Milky Chance was chosen by my partner and I for certain significant reasons. Originally we wanted to look for a slower song so that the words could be worded properly; Stolen Dance has a mixture of different tempo's and pitch's that are easier to word along as well as easier to keep up with. Secondly, we wanted a song with a changeable music video; Milky Chance created a simple music video with a hidden/deeper meaning behind it but the music video is currently not as complicated as expected. Finally, the song we wanted had to have a diverse story behind it; Stolen Dance is about a man's drug addiction, but put into idea a break-up with a girl. With this there are a lot of ideas we can use to create our own unique story. This is their original music video.

Timeline of development

This timeline was created to ensure that my team and I keep on track with the stages of creation and completion towards our final product. This task taught my team and I to predominantly work together as a team. Other than the fact that this task took a long time; it also allowed my team and I to share the work load and also briefly discuss our final product and its creation along the way.

Summary

Just summing up what I've done so far in preparations to my final product and the beginning of production.

Practice makes perfect: Final Cut

As a preliminary task for final cut, I was given a handful of randomised video clips and songs. My task was to put a song or some songs in sync with some of the videos. What I came out with was a video of a shark and a tiger dancing around, and put one of the music clips with it. The music was out of time and didn't always link up, and the clips had large blank parts in-between every couple of seconds; all of these things had to be removed and changed. When I had synced the music to the clip, cut out all black marks, I was then asked to add any extras with my time left such as filters, titles and time-lapses. My final piece includes a title and filter. This task helped me improve and remind me of Final Cut tools as well as begin my insight into music video's as it's a new task for me. I feel this task will help in the long-run as we progress in the creation stages of our music video because it gave us a preliminary insight into the challenging editing side of creation.

R&B mood video

This mood video was created to shows conventions of a particular genre of music and how their video's contrast with what they're known for. Here I've chosen R&B which includes a lot of rappers known for their loud and obnoxious sounding music, however R&B is slower and full of emotion; really showing the characteristics of each and every artist.

Genre Research-EDM and House

This first Prezi shows the analysis of the genre of EDM (electric dance music) and House music. I chose EDM because of the diversity that lays within the creation of an EDM song. Due to the complicated processes of synthesizing and base lining; the creation of an EDM song can be changed to another sub-genre with one different sounding pitch or change in tempo. I also chose House music as one sub-genre of EDM; House is one of the most enjoyable and well-known. House is also quite diverse as it's slowed tempo can still be considered good for raves and parties, confusing it with EDM. With this research, I hope the process for choosing a genre for my final piece to be made easier.
This second Prezi shows the analysis of the genre of Rap and Hip-Hop music. I chose these two because most of these songs created were done for a freestyle type of release and therefore many won't expect extravegent  music videos or productions. With this, I can make choosing my genre a lot easier.

Neil Diamond Digipak analysis

Untitled from Jack Ansell on Vimeo.
This video explains the uses of a digipak within a CDs casing. Here I chose to analyse Neil Diamond's "The Jazz Singer"; I found it interesting that this particular CD included so much extra content such as pictures and lyrics. The CD itself holds the complete soundtrack from the movie: "The Jazz Singer". On the movie's IMBd page, someone wrote that the CD itself sold over 5 million copies, and made more than the initial film that it was based on. This was interesting to see considering the time the movie was released was a popular time to go to the cinema and see the progress of cinema at that time. Overall this video was interesting to film as I was without knowledge when it came to what a digipak was and it gave me sufficient information and drive to possibly pursue creating my own digipak as a part of my music video.

Goodwins Theory applied to 'Monster' by The Automatic

Goodwin's theory contained a list of things that a music video should have. I've applied the list to the song 'Monster' by The Automatic; a revival-punk band that re-invented their own sound applied to punk culture to create a rebellious sound and look, but included childish wants and needs as they progressed. With this Prezi I have shown skill that I now know how to analyse a music video and I can continue to this until the creation of my music video. When it comes to my music video; it'll be easier to find extras to incorporate into my final product.

Introduction to course

The task at hand for media A2 is asking for the creation of a music video, as well as detailed blog to the follow up of the final product. Including an original music video, I'm also expected to piece together a website and a podcast. With these components altogether I will have produced a music video, complete with CD casing and digipak. Throughout the process of creating this music video, this blog will have posts showing my research and planning that led up to the final product.