Lyric Annotations

Storyboard

Our Target Audience

Our primary target audience are females aged 16-25 as, in our survey, the indie rock genre was more popular among our female participants than the men. Furthermore, narratives came out much more popular with women in our survey than men as over 20% more women picked it as an element of music videos they enjoy.
To appeal to them we are going to feature the band as females generally tend to enjoy seeing the members and getting to know

Our secondary target audience are males aged 16-25 as our male/female split in our audience was so close that we knew the genre appeals to both. Therefore we are creating a generally gender neutral music video that will appeal to both our primary and secondary target audience by conveying a universal issue and rallying indiscriminate support.

However, when conducting our research we found that the indie rock genre actually had a relatively big audience of 40-54 year old men because it was a popular music genre in the 90s due to bands like Oasis, Blur and Pulp. Therefore, we can't discount this audience as they could be interested in the band. However, they would be a tertiary target audience because the band is young and therefore less likely to appeal to an older audience.

Feedback - Research and Planning

The feedback I have had fro my research and planning is really positive which I'm very happy about. I'm going to make a blog post to more explicitly state who our primary and secondary target audience is to make sure it's very clear who are video is designed to appeal to.

Social Media

In our group, Rob is in charge of social media. He has set up an Instagram account under our company name - Magpie Media - and is using it to track the progress of our music video production to raise awareness before it's release. He created a post after me and Ed had been out filming our first bits of footage and posted it with several hashtags to increase the chances of it being seen by a wider audience.

We will continue to post throughout the process to develop a timeline of events which people can follow in the lead up to the release of the completed video. 

Location Scouting

For our video we are planning on using several different locations. To begin with we plan on re-shooting the performance section of the video at Pirate Studios in Kirkstall. This is a better studio as it is a bigger space so we will have more room for different shot types and angles. As well as this, the studio is more lit than the previous location therefore the quality of the footage will be better.

For the narrative section of the video we will have to use several locations as we will follow the protagonist through his story. His progression will therefore taking him to new places meaning that we have to find more suitable locations. To begin with we will meet the protagonist in the German Christmas Market in the centre of Leeds. I was in Leeds this week and went to familiarise herself with the market and take pictures so we could plan where we want our protagonist to be positioned. The market has several stalls and is covered in fairy lights which gives it the festive, happy mood we desired in order to contrast with the cold exclusion of homelessness.

There are also gaps between the stalls which we were very excited about as we wanted to 'find' our protagonist hidden away in the market and this is the perfect place to position them, allowing them to be within and yet without.

We also discovered that there are attractions which would make for great establishing shots in our video such as a carousel, inflatable snow globe and ferris wheel. We even thought we might be able to go in the wheel, price dependant, to get some establishing shots of Leeds from a higher vantage point.

There are also bumper cars which could look great if we wanted them to create a 'happy' festive mood at the tart of the video to contrast with the sadness of the following narrative. 

Overall we are very happy with this location and will definitely be making use of it in our video.

Ed has done some location scouting around Leeds whilst he's been there on an evening and found some places which would be nice to film in:

We particularly liked this location because of the light it provided which would produce better quality footage. 

Then we will follow him to Leeds Train Station where in the first narrative he tries to escape the abuse he receives in the city.

We also took a couple of pictures during the day:

We thought we could shoot from the island in the middle of the road as it gives us a good perspective of the station. 

In the second narrative this is where we see the protagonist taken by his friend who is trying to help him start a new life. After this we will use the bridge at Shipley Train Station.

This is where the first story ends as we see the protagonist collapse on the bridge. But in the second narrative we will need a house and a front room in which the protagonist can set up their new life. After this we will go back to Leeds city Centre but this time the protagonist will be dressed in a suit to show how far he has come since he was homeless. We were thinking of ending the video with our protagonist walking through Victoria Gate in Leeds to contrast with the streets he was living on before.

We were also thinking that maybe, after the song has finished, we bring the video to a close in a cyclical nature by having our protagonist put money in another homeless man's cup to foreshadow the same development in their life as we see in the video. This would be a poignant way to end the video and create a more hopeful feeling about the end of homelessness.

First Day Filming

On Thursday 9th November we collected our first bits of footage for our music video. This is very early in the process which allows us plenty of time to reshoot if we think it needs to be of a higher standard.

 This also came before we started storyboarding but this wasn't  a problem as we were filming the section of our music video which features the band so we didn't need to decide on the sequence of shots we needed as we weren't telling a story like we will be during the narrative section of the video. We did, however, need to think about the types of shots and camera angles we wanted. We took inspiration from other music videos in the same genre, specifically the Maroon 5 video for 'Harder to Breathe', to decide on how we wanted to position our camera. We settled on taking 3 cameras to minimise the number of times we had to run through the track.  In the first run through we needed one was set up as a master shot to capture all the band members together and two off to the side, one focussing solely on the lead singer and the other on whoever was on the other side, perhaps a guitarist. Then in the second run through we would get more close up shots on the other members of the band.

Initially we were supposed to be filming in a location called Pirate Studios. We were very happy about this as it looked like a great location with lots of lights which we could use to create the mood we needed and get good quality footage. However, at the last minute the band changed locations to a different studio in Leeds called Jar Mills Studios. When we looked at this online we could tell it wasn't as ideal as the other, the rooms looked darker and less set up for filming than the other (which was specifically used for doing live streams or filming videos). Their time in the studio had also changed - it was now 7-10pm. Although this was less convenient, we decided to make the most of it by going to the Leeds Christmas Lights switch-on, which was on the same night, to get some cutaways and establishing shots for the music video.

Unfortunately Rob was unable to go but he helped us prepare and decide on our plan so me and Ed could execute it with as much ease as possible. We arrived at the studios with 3 cameras and 3 tripods and met with the band who were really lovely and eager to help in any way they could. However, we hadn't anticipated just how loud it would be in the soundproof room where they were playing as if on the main stage at a gig; luckily they were selling earplugs in the studios which we quickly purchased. Unfortunately this posed another issue - we were trying to set up three cameras with just two of us, making sure that each one was exactly the same so we could seamlessly cut between each shot, without being able to verbally communicate. This was a real challenge. In the end we had to use our phones to write down what we were saying and show it to each other just to get it all set up.

The next problem we had was lighting. It was pretty dark in the room with no proper lights we could use to improve the situation. The walls were also a deep red with the wall directly behind the band painted a matt black. This just absorbed all the light. We did the best we could by turning the ISO up to 400 however, we didn't want to take it any higher as it would make the picture grainy. Therefore the image was darker than would've been ideal.

The room was also very small which posed a challenge in getting all the band members into one shot and getting all the cameras set up as the floor was completely covered in wires. However, we managed it so the first run through we had a master shot, a side shot and a shot of the singer. We had decided that we wanted the shot of the singer to be at a low angle and from the side, just like the angle on Adam Levine in the 'Harder to Breathe' video as we really liked this effect and saw that it was typical in the 'indie rock' genre. The camera on the singer and the master shot stayed static throughout the whole first run through however, me and Ed both stood at the side shot and moved the camera around depending on who was doing the most in the song at each given time and got a variety of shots including  two shot of the lead and backing singer during their harmonies together.
On the second run through we got a close up of each of the other band members - bass guitar, lead guitar and drummer. To get a good angle of the drummer we had to ask the lead singer to stand out of the set-up as he was stood in front of the drummer and the shot looked so much better from the front than from the side. This was okay though because we didn't need another master shot of the whole set-up so it didn't matter that there were cameras in the middle of it all this time.
We also made sure to get some pictures for our social media campaign.

After we had done then second run through we had managed to get everything we needed. We said goodbye to the band and headed straight to the Headrow where the Christmas Light Switch-On was happening. We arrived just as they were starting the 10 second countdown so we rushed to get our cameras out and Ed managed to capture the actual light switch on, although that turned out to actually be very anticlimactic. Then the fireworks started so we managed to capture various bits of footage from different angles of the explosions which we thought we could use to accent beats in the music. I switched between having them in and out of focus because they looked very effective both ways so we can choose between which effect we want.
When the fireworks were over we turned out attention to the travelling fair which was there as there were loads of lights and crowds which could make for some very effective cutaways. I just found anything of interest such as carousels or carnival rides and filmed them, usually using a focus pull to create some movement within the shot.
When the crowds had cleared we filmed some of the cleanup too as there was loads of rubbish left over to get some nice contrasting shots. However, this was very dark as the lights were going off so I don't know how usable this will be. We tried to make use of the left over confetti on the streets though by setting up a shot of the town hall covered in fairy lights and sprinkling confetti in front of the camera lens which actually looked quite nice.

When we reviewed the footage we found that the bits in the studio were very dark so we initially thought it wouldn't be usable. However, black and white was much more forgiving and this was an effect we wanted to use for the main body of the video anyway. Therefore we thought that we would get back in touch with the band and see when they were using Pirate Studios so we could go and film them there too. Then we'll have two bits of footage of them which we could choose between. We also thought that if the Jar Mills Studio footage looked better in black and white and the Pirate Studios footage looked better in colour then we could use one for each part of the video to get some variation, clearly demonstrating the two different tones and conflicting narratives within the video.

The footage of the light switch on was as shaky as we'd expected but there are some nice shots in there which we can use as cutaways or establishing shots at the start and throughout the video.

This was a very eventful night of filming but overall pretty successful. We have some footage of the band which we may or may not use but, even if we don't, it was still very useful as a preliminary task so we got to see the dynamics of the band and what shots work for them as a group. We also got some nice shots of Leeds which we can use in the main body of the video which is very important to the band as they are keen to represent their home town within their music video. We are going to turn the footage we collected into our first rough cut of our performance aspect of the video so we can practice this and get a feel for the pace of the video and how it should be edited. This is the final product:

The above video is our first rough cut, incorporating footage from the shoot at Jar Mills and the Christmas lights switch-on in Leeds city centre, which fortunately was taking place on the same evening. We managed to schedule the shoot so we could get a variety of angles of the band as well as the fireworks display and switch-on outside Town Hall. We edited the video and tried to incorporate some of the concepts we had been discussing prior to shooting. The video contains the following elements:

• Rhythmic editing

• Cuts between the band in performance and a location shoot around Leeds (At this stage we haven't begun to film the narrative portion of the video so shots of Leeds are substituting for this at this point)

• Shifts from black and white to colour

• A down-to-earth aesthetic in terms of the text and inclusion of real recorded sound from the shooting day

• Establishing shots of Leeds

• Close ups of the band members

After editing we have come to the conclusion that we should arrange another filming session with the band as the footage is ultimately more grainy and dark than we would have hoped to achieve. In order to get the video as professional looking as we can we need to either bring lighting equipment or shoot in a different location, as Jar Mills was unfortunately black and red with dim lighting that didn't translate well to camera (such as the original preferred venue Pirate Studios, which has its own lighting installed, including lighting with coloured gels that could give our video more vibrancy). We also now need to plan a shoot at the Leeds German Christmas Market as this closes on December 24th and is a crucial desired location for the narrative portion of our video.

Similar Music Videos - Dan Croll: Bad Boy

Dan Croll - Bad Boy

This video uses lots of genre conventions such as low light, performance aspects and black and white.  It is very nicely done with smooth transitions between shots almost creating the illusion of one single shot which is very satisfying to watch. Also, the use of light is very clever with the different colours being used to control mood and create contrasts e.g. blue when he's confined and sad or in trouble and the warmer reds and yellows when he's 'broken free'. The most interesting part of this video for us is the section at 2:11 to 2:47 where the image begins in black and white but repeats the same sequence of shots whilst slowly seeping the colour back in until the black and white effect is totally gone. This is the idea we had for our video - a kind of 'Wizard of Oz' effect where it begins in black and white but ends in colour. The use of it in an indie rock video of a similar style is very encouraging as it shows the effect will be relevant to the genre and target audience. We can also see here that it is very effective as you don't initially notice the colour change which is exactly what we'd hoped it would be like. 

Similar Music Videos - Maroon 5: Harder to Breathe

Maroon 5: Harder to Breathe 

We now need to investigate the indie rock genre to make sure our video uses conventions for the genre. For this I’m going to analyse the Maroon 5 video for “Harder to Breathe”. To begin with the whole video uses dark colours and a lot of shadows for the mise-en-scene. This is a genre convention for the indie rock genre as a lot of the songs use a dark narrative and the visuals link to the music. A theory stated originally by Andrew Goodwin. The pace of the editing is very fast pace as this links to the pace of the drum beat in the background of the song. Most indie rock songs contain a beat like this therefore a pace editing pace is a classic genre convention for indie rock. However, this video also breaks genre conventions. For example, most indie songs are written to portray a deep and meaningful story. But this video contains no narrative and concentrates on the star image of the band. Although star image is a motif of Maroon 5. During the performance in this video a master shot is used as well as secondary shots. the master shot is stationary and views the whole band. The seoncdary shots are hand held and form close up shots on the performers and their instruments. Electric guitars and drums are classic images of indie rock therefore it is a genre convention to show these instruments in the video.

Correspondence with the Band

This was our initial correspondence with the band, right after I had emailed them to see if they were interested in us making them a video. 

Band Update

When Rob met up with Toby last Monday (30th October) Toby mentioned that they were currently rehearsing in a studio in Leeds called Pirate Studios and invited us to film them there. We thought this was a fab idea as it allowed us to get some footage of them 'performing live' to fit with the genre conventions. Therefore we messaged the band to ask them if we'd be able to meet them there this Monday:

However, Toby replied saying that Monday was not a good day for them, suggesting instead that we go the following Thursday. We have agreed to this so tomorrow me and Ed are going into Leeds to film them at Pirate Studios. We are taking 3 three cameras, one which we will just set up as an master shot and two which we will use to get more close-up and different angled shots. We will do the initial run through with the 3 cameras on tripods to get three steady, solid angles which we can then refer back to throughout the video. Then we will turn off the master shot and just use the two other cameras to get some more interesting music videos such as the low, side angles we've seen in other performance based videos such as Maroon 5's 'Harder to Breathe'. Hopefully we will then be able to get a variety of interesting shot types and angles as well as 3 steady core shots which we can use to create our 'music video within the music video'. 

We have been thinking about going into Leeds to just get some preliminary shots and establishing shots we can use for the introduction of our video. When we found out we would be in Leeds filming at the studio on Thursday, we realised it coincided with the Christmas lights switch on which we had wanted to go to to get some 'happy' footage which we can contrast with our 'sad' stuff surrounding the homeless person. Therefore me and Ed are going to stay in Leeds to capture the light switch on which we may even use when we start to introduce colour. We also had a look to see what else was going on and saw that there is a 2 hour concert on before the lights are actually turned on so we thought we could film some of this as well, perhaps of the stage or maybe just of the crowd to try and capture the atmosphere. 

So hopefully, after Thursday, we should have our first footage for the narrative side of the video and all the footage of the performance aspects. 

Similar Music Videos - Alt J: In Cold Blood

Alt-J - In Cold Blood

A self aware sense of humour I’ve seen before in Kasabian’s music videos is highly prevalent in this concept/narrative video. The video appears to parody a David Attenborough-type nature documentary, in this case about a mouse. Theres a black comedy twist to this trope however as while in the first half of the music video the nature documentary is authentic looking (complete with a voiceover) and has a forest setting the second half shows the mouse wandering into the aftermath of a crime deal that has gone wrong complete with bodies and violent imagery. The video revels in some bleak and grisly mise-en-scene that sharply contrasts the natural beauty and peacefulness that sums up the beginning of the video and can be expected of nature documentaries. The subverting of expectations creates a somewhat funny but also unnerving effect with the video and befits indie rock videos which have a penchant for creative/unique concepts and self-awareness.

Similar Music Video research - Elbow: Grounds for Divorce

Elbow: Grounds for Divorce

This is an interesting video which first appears to be a relatively simple performance style but is edited in a very subtle but clever way. Every time the music repeats they use the same sequence of shots to accentuate this recurring melody. This idea of repeating and rewinding certain shots runs through the whole video and is used particularly well in shots where its effects are exaggerated e.g. when they start the snooker game. This is actually a similar concept to our video.

The general video sticks within the genre conventions as it is made up of a 'live performance' and, although it definitely focusses more on the lead singer, there are shots acknowledging each of the musicians and backing singers in turn. This is something which we can take note of when filming the performance aspects of our video, to get the balance of screen time for each of the band members right in accordance to genre conventions.

The general colouring of this video is muted with very few bright colours or 'stand out' props or costumes. This is not something we can take inspiration from because our band have said they like bright colours and often use them in their promotional techniques. Therefore this is something we need to include in our video despite it not fully conforming to genre conventions.

They also have elements of choreography within it with the girl dancing in the bar. This adds a layer of interest to what would otherwise be a purely performance based video. We don't need something like this in our video as it will be interwoven with a narrative which is actually the main focus of the video, therefore giving it layers of meaning beyond what this particular Elbow video has.

Interestingly, here, the concept lies in the editing rather than in the actual camera work or mise en scene. All it's individuality was added after the video was shot through the use of the repeated and recurring sections of footage that go in time with the music. It's a clever idea and one that makes the video memorable so it stands out amongst all the other indie rock performance based videos.

Meeting with Tranqua Lite

On Monday 30th October Rob met with Tranqua Lite band member Toby who we've been communicating with about the video. Rob went with a list of questions (written in my concepts blogpost) and also just to pitch our ideas to get their opinions and own ideas too. This is the feedback we got:

• They really liked our ideas, especially the Biffy Clyro inspired one with two storylines. They liked how this wasn't a stereotypical video and thought it would help them stand out. Therefore we have decided to go with this idea as the main body of our video. 
• They hadn't written the song with any particular person in mind but were inspired by their surroundings and the level of homelessness in Leeds, therefore they liked the idea of having an interview with an ex-homeless person at the start of the video. Therefore this is also something we're going to pursue and film to, again, make the video stand out from others of it's kind and also give it a bigger impact on it's audience. 
• They want to give the audience a view of their environment, all their ideas are based on their home town so they really liked the idea of filming it in Leeds. 
• The only slight problem we came across was that they like bright colours and their album cover is made up of them. Therefore they might be averse to our idea of presenting it in black and white. However, Toby said it might work as long as the colours are definitely seeped in at the end, even perhaps bringing in individual colours the band use to promote themselves such as blue and red. This is something we will have to discuss further with the band when we meet again. 
• They are rehearsing for the release of another single later this month and are using a recording studio in Leeds to do so. Toby invited us to the studio to film them performing the song which we could use as our music video within a music video. Although we originally though of doing a set up like the '4 5 seconds' video, this might be better as it's more in keeping with the genre conventions and is an amazing opportunity to use a professional set up in the video. We are going to see if we can meet them there on Monday to film the performance aspects of the video which is very exciting! 

Analysis of Music Video Results

To get a better view of our target audience we created a questionnaire which we posted on Facebook to reach a wider, varied audience (not just media students) to get a more representative view of how our genre sits in different age groups and see if it matches with our YouGov audience research. Overall, we got 47 responses. They support our initial audience research which is very reassuring and backs up our initial thoughts on target audience. 

Out of 21 indie rock artists the following age groups had heard an average of:

- 16-25: 51.7%

- 41-50: 54.5%

- 51+: 37.7%

The same question comparing the genders of those surveyed is as follows

Males had heard of an average of 42.9% of the artists

Females had heard of an average of 51.3% of the artists

46.15% of males surveyed listed indie rock as a genre they enjoy regularly listening to.

52.94% of females surveyed listed indie rock as a genre they enjoy regularly listening to.

As our results clearly show, the previous audience research matches almost exactly with there being a relatively even split between girls and boys in their interest in indie rock. We can also see our younger (16-25) and older (41-50) generations recognising more of the indie rock bands, reflecting how they're more familiar with the genre and suggesting a larger fan base in these age categories which we also found in our previous research. We believe this to be because the indie rock genre lost it's popularity in the 2000s and has recently gained a much larger following meaning it's fanbase is generally more mature adults and young teenagers. Our questionnaire results show similar patterns which reinforces this idea. However, as the band is young (teenagers) our primary target audience will be young fans as people tend to follow artists similar to their age group. We can see this reflected in our audience research as more modern bands such as 'Catfish and the Bottlemen' were much more recognised amongst the younger age group than the older one. Similarly older groups, such as 'Pulp' were less well known in the younger group (only around 37% said they had heard of them) whereas this was much higher in the older age group (100% recognition). As our band is new and young, it can be expected that our primary target audience will definitely be in the 16-25 age category. 

The 51+ generation knew less of the bands showing that they are less interested in this music scene but are still interested in this genre, therefore this age group is our secondary target audience. 

For one of our questions we asked what aspects of music videos the audience found appealing. 

Our music video will be composed of narrative and performance elements so these results were very encouraging. We can see that, for our primary target audience, narrative is the most popular choice which fits in with the main body of the video. Interestingly, they were also positive about the depiction of social issues, an option selected by 40% of our audience. This is really good as the band wanted the video to centre around homelessness which I had concerns about not appealing to a younger audience. However, they responded very positively to this option in the questionnaire, especially compared to the 40-51 age group where only 10% chose it. This makes me feel very positive about our target audience's reaction to the video.

Similarly, in another question we gave our audience screenshots from different genres of music video and asked them to pick one which appealed to them. B and E represent our ideas.  

17/39 people of our identified target audience picked B and E. 

This, again, is very encouraging as it suggests that our intended look and style of our video appeals to our primary target audience. 

This question asked audiences to pick the music genres which they regularly listened to. 

As we can see, in our primary target audience, indie rock is the second most popular genre of music behind pop with over 60% of our audience choosing it. It was also the third most popular choice for the 41-50 age category with over 50% of them selecting it, again supporting the pattern of older and younger generations liking the genre. This just further solidifies that our target audience is correct and will be likely to watch the video. 

This question asked audiences to select which lighting style they preferred in music videos. 

These results were admittedly unexpected. We did not think that sunset lighting would be so popular nor did we really understand why. Apart from this interesting result, everything else seemed pretty evenly spread which is positive as our black and white idea was relatively well received by our target audience but I definitely think we should add colour in at the end as bright colours scored marginally higher in the questionnaire with around 36% of people choosing that and 33% picking black and white. 

Overall, our results were very positive in relation to our previous research and music video ideas. We feel confident that we will successfully appeal to our desired target audience effectively as well as presented the issue as we had desired which is a very positive outcome.