Thursday, 12 October 2017

Our Pitch

In preparation for our pitch we had a lesson where we collated all our work onto one sheet of concepts so we had all our ideas in one place and could use this as a prompt sheet for our pitch.




From here we created a keynote presentation where we chose to use pictures to illustrate each of our points rather than writing them out as we thought this would make for a more interesting and engaging presentation as well as helping our audience to visualise the video. We created a kind of virtual mood board.







We put three pictures on each slide and talked through what each one represented for our idea. We tried to make our contributions to the pitch equal and helped each other by making sure every concept we presented was fully explained and comprehensive.

Another fun feature of our presentation was our decision to slowly seep colour into the pictures through the pitch; they begin in black and white and end in complete colour. This is to mimic the idea we want to do in the video but, instead of just stating it, we demonstrated it to give our audience a better understanding.


I think our pitch went really well. We managed to get all our ideas across clearly and covered our narrative and visual concepts, messages we were playing with, target audience, influences and our communication with the band.

We have emailed the band a link to our pitch on youtube so they can also clearly see the ideas we've had in preparation for a meeting with them. We have also set up a youtube account for Magpie Media so we can post our footage through the process.

Monday, 9 October 2017

Ed Sheeran - The A Team

When we were researching music videos that explored homelessness we came across this video for Ed Sheeran's 'The A Team' and we really liked the tone and feel of the video.


Although there are many points of difference - it doesn't explore homelessness singularly but instead focusses more on drugs and prostitution and it has a sad ending meaning the video itself is actually quite bleak - but we can still use it for inspiration for our own video.

It's edited into black and white which we really liked; this was the first time we had properly seen homelessness presented in this way and we thought it was very effective at showing the bleakness of the situation. However, because our video ends happily, leaving the audience feeling more uplifted, we thought we could slowly seep colour into it at the turning point when their life starts to improve so that our video ends in colour. This shows the shift in tone from bleakness to hope.

They also use a time lapse when the girl is sat on the street with people walking past which is really good at showing how homeless people are trapped in a time warp and unable to break the loop of poverty, linking into our idea of creating a 'groundhog day' kind of feeling. This is something we could recreate in Leeds with a GoPro, even filming in 4K.

We also just liked the general setup of this video, having the camera following the girl around in like a documentary, fly on the wall kind of style. This is really effective in creating a 'rugged' looking video and would nicely contrast with the steady camerawork and cleanly edited shots of the band in the studio, again reinforcing the theme of being within and without.

Friday, 6 October 2017

Concepts

This lesson we sat down and talked through our concept ideas so we could collate them all in one document which we can use during our pitch to the class and also take when we meet the band so our ideas are clear and more solidified than before.

This is the list:


The big things we need to discuss with the band are:

-Do they want to be in it or use an actor for the narrative? Depending on their availability, it might be easier to use an actor we know e.g. someone from Rob's drama group as they would be likely to have more time to meet us and spend the time which the project is going to need. 

-What is the purpose of the video? Do they want to send a political message, raise awareness, motivate people to take action or just entertain? All of this will have a huge impact on how we position the video. 

-Was the song written for someone? What prompted them to write about this particular issue, did they know someone it affected? If so, it would be good to perhaps get an interview with them or someone with a similar story at the start of the video. 

-What part of 'homelessness' do they want to represent? Do they want to show the difficulties of living on the streets, the way things can be recovered, how people got there, the challenges faced by people in difficult situations e.g. illnesses, job losses, abuse that can lead to homelessness a la 'I, Daniel Blake', how you can help people on the streets, or present a journey of hope? It's a very broad topic and we need to know what element of it they had in mind when they wrote the song. 


When we were discussing narrative ideas it became clear to us that we would have to be very careful in the way this video presented homelessness. We don't want to victimise the homeless by showing them as passive victims waiting to be helped by someone else. We want to show them as strong people in traumatic situations but who can get through it. However, we don't want to go too far the wrong way and say that they're absolutely not victims of circumstance and we are very mindful about sending the wrong message e.g. that they got themselves there and should get themselves out. Therefore we must handle the issue sensitively and always be aware about how we're presenting the character. 

 We looked at some more music videos, focussing particularly on Ed Sheehan's 'A-Team' music video where we really liked some of the techniques used e.g. the time lapse with lots of movement around a static homeless person.


We thought this would be effective in Leeds station where there is a really heavy footfall or on Shipley Station bridge which is a very interesting, strangely symmetrical location. We also liked the black and white effect and thought this could be really symbolic in the video, especially if we started to seep colour into it when the situation starts to improve, really gradually and starting with muted colours so the audience don't really notice until, all of a sudden, there's colour.

We also wanted to emphasise the idea of some people being inside and others being out by showing those with homes in contrast to those without e.g. looking through house windows or filming the band at a gig and having a homeless person watching from the window. This really emphasises that simple struggle of them being excluded not only from comfort but also from society.

Wednesday, 4 October 2017

Our Fourth Idea

When we were all together talking we began to combine our ideas, linking them together to create something really interesting to watch yet still powerful and closely lined to the band's intentions.

We thought it would be interesting to start the video at the end, having the band playing in a venue and then doing a 180 degree turn to face the audience (so the band are now behind the camera) and having the lead signer stood in the audience watching. We would have to do this by stitching two shots together and hiding the cut in the spin. In this movement we would've moved from the future (the end of the video) into the past (the start of the video). The lead signer could walk out of the venue and go and spend the night on the streets. We could then combine this with my idea to make up some of the body of the video - having him busking to make money either with the rest of the band or having the other members make cameos throughout the videos (this is common in other music videos such as the Biffy Clyro 'Biblical' one). Then the video would continue chronologically until we reach the end where the band are playing in the venue where the video started showing where they came from and where they got to.

Tranqua Lite also sent us through an early demo for the song. They said it was much longer and slightly slower than the final version but it gives us an idea of the tone and lyrics of the song. One of the biggest things we noticed was the bird imagery, particularly magpies (giving us the idea for our 'company name'). We thought we could incorporate this into their video by having recurring bird imagery e.g. designing a bird silhouette and having that appear on things throughout the video e.g. on a band member's jacket, on his guitar, on the cup he's using to collect money etc. We thought we could even extend this to be the image behind the title of the song which could appear at the start of the video. Furthermore, magpies have very superstitious connotations e.g. one for sorrow two for joy. We thought we could play on this, having a single magpie as the first shot of the video and two magpies as the final one. However, his would be difficult as it would be a challenge to try and find and film magpies. But this is definitely an idea we could play around with.
We thought we could also use the bird imagery in different, subtle ways e.g. having feathers throughout the video or references to wings or diegetic tweets every now and then, just in the background as much of the narrative will take place outside.

Our Third Idea

As well as coming up with the idea of the homeless person seeing the band on TV screens etc, Ed also built on Rob's idea suggesting that we could create a groundhog day inspired video to show how homeless people become trapped in a cycle of poverty. This cycle would be broken sometime during the video by different actions from a member of the public or the person.

We could just repeat the same sequence of events over and over, showing the struggles of living on the street e.g. the cold, discomfort and threats. On the last cycle round this would be broken and the video would end in an uplifting way again, having them released from the poverty trap.

The only problem with this idea is that it could become repetitive and boring. This video needs to be really powerful and poignant so the last thing we want is for people to zone out. Therefore we would have to address this possibility, perhaps making the video more fast paced or intercutting the narrative with different, interesting shots of the band's performance.

Our Second Idea

I was a big fan of Rob's idea however we needed to incorporate the band in order to meet the genre conventions of indie rock and to 'introduce' them to the industry as this is their first official video. Therefore we started trying to come up with ideas of how to bring them more seamlessly into the video rather than just cutting between a narrative and a studio recording. These ideas included having the homeless person walking past houses and seeing the band perform on the TV through the window. I suggested a way of further involving the band would be to have the homeless person sleeping outside the venue where they're performing, therefore having them listen to the band's music, possibly even beginning the song as diegetic sound before launching into the rest of the video.

When I went away to think about it I came up with the idea of having the band actually as the homeless people busking on the street. We could then follow the story of them getting help and finally end the video with them performing at a gig. This way we can incorporate the narrative of homelessness, promote the idea of helping to reduce it and give a lot of screen time to the band and performance as well as creating an uplifting video for the audience. This would rely on whether the and would be comfortable being so involved in the narrative

Our First Idea

Rob came up with an idea influenced by a Biffy Clyro video he saw in his audience research. He suggested showing a narrative of a homeless person where everyone ignores him, showing him no kindness and no way to get off the streets. It would end badly e.g. him sleeping out and getting beaten up or turning to stealing etc. We would then show the same narrative but with someone showing kindness e.g. giving them some money or helping them find a charity. This would then lead to a happy ending e.g. them having a job and a home, possibly even ending with them helping another homeless person the same way they were helped. This would provide both the beak and the hopeful side of the issue which the band said they wanted us to present.

We could either present this through using exactly the same shots and camera angles in both but just changing the narrative to really emphasise how easily you could change the fate of someone in need. This is shown in the Biffy Clyro video 'Biblical':


Or we could do it in a less obvious way, having two different endings to a story but making it more naturalistic. This is like a music video I took part in for the charity 'Safe at Last' which showed  a terrible scenario which ended firstly with one character running away, one self harming and one committing suicide. In the second ending all the characters called the helplines and all their situations were resolved.

Safe At Last from Jack Delaney on Vimeo.

Either way I think this is a very strong suggestion for achieving the intention the band have set.

Our New Band - Tranqua Lite

Tranqua Lite are a very new alternative rock band from Leeds which means there is very little about them in the industry. They do fit into the alternative rock category but it is their eclectic sound which differentiates them in quite a saturated genre.

They are made up of Toby Womack, Ben Marcano-Oliver, Mike Pledge and ..... and are releasing their first song, 'Tempered Tides' on iTunes in October 2017 and they are debuting it at a gig in leeds on the 20th October.

They have done performances in line ups with other bands including Joy Room and Ormstons at local venues in leeds as well as performing on the main stage for Leeds Pride.



They have not released a music video before and don't appear to have had any professional photography done so this would be their first proper introduction in the eyes of the media.

They had a new band member join this month - Mike Pledge, the future lead guitarist which shows how they're growing and developing - a very positive sign.

We are going to be working with them to create a music video for their first song 'Tempered Tides' which is about homelessness and requires a narrative video to tell it's story. We will be working closely with the band to establish a clear plan and create a high quality music video that meets their intentions for the song and which is powerful and engaging.


Taylor Swift - Look What You Made Me Do


I just watched this music video and I thought it was really interesting. It sort of treads the line between narrative and concept, both relating directly to the lyrics as well as reflecting on events (and people) in the modern world and music industry. Therefore it caused a big buzz on the internet and drummed up over 500 million views. It is clearly high budget and made use of both makeup and costume, on location shooting and special effects making it visually striking and very interesting to watch.

Possible Tempered Tides Lyrics

INTRO

VERSE 1
Soaring through the sky you spot me vulnerable and broken.
A product of your mess, I'm just a twinkle in your eye.
I hear the tidings of magpies, the laws of which unspoken,
You pick, you choose, you claw until you're strong enough to fly.

VERSE 2
Why are the things you choose to steal so delicate and glistening?
Alluring though they seem they don't mean anything to me.
Your ear to the ground you act as though you're surely listening
The meaning of my life is not the product that you [seek]

INSTRUMENTAL

VERSE 3
I've seen one thousand souls as the year colds, they're torn and rusting.
The year itself in riches but the torment won't subside.
One thousand more outside these bodies cold and worn, untrusting.
Don't pick at people's eyeballs you will make the people blind.
(GUITAR SOLO)
One thousand souls are torn.

INSTRUMENTAL

CHORUS
Turn the tides, the tides will be unworn
Turn the tides, the tides will be unworn
You turn the tides, the tides are turned and now you are unworn
(Turn the tides, the tides will be unworn)
You turn the tides, the tides are turned and now you are unworn
(Turn the tides, the tides will be unworn)

INSTRUMENTAL, FEATURING GUITAR SOLO

OUTRO
Turn the tides, the tides will be unworn
Turn the tides, the tides will be unworn
Turn the tides, the tides will be unworn
Turn the tides, the tides will be unworn




New Group Company Name

Initial ideas:

-Magpie Media - links to the song lyrics and 'finding gems'
-Mercury Media - precious metal?
-MER Media - First letters of our names

We have decided to call our group 'Magpie Media' because we like the idea of the bird symbolism which is also highly relevant to the lyrics of the song we're promoting. We also like the connotations of magpies finding precious things which we could link to how our band stood out to us and why we chose to work with them.

Audience Research - Artic Monkeys

Arctic Monkeys



To help us decide what the Howl target audience should be we have researched similar indie bands and what their target audience is. I researched Arctic Monkeys and used YouGov to find out their target audience. For Arctic Monkeys I discovered that their most popular generation is the younger generation from 18 year olds to 25 year olds. However, the next main target audience is 40-50 year olds. This shows that indie rock has gone through fazes. It was popular back in the 70s when the older target audience were teenagers and it has reawaken and has become popular again as my generation are teenagers. The gender of their target audience is mixed. The survey shows that 50.7% of the Arctic Monkeys fans are female with 49.3% of the target audience being male. This is a very even split therefore their music videos have to appeal to both male and female audiences.


This video for Arabella appeals for both female and male viewers. The video uses voyeristic images therefore using the idea of male gaze. This therefore makes the video appealing for the male audience members. Female audience members will be attracted by the images of the band themselves and especially the star image of Alex Turner. Female fans are also more likely to enjoy and appreciate an emotional narrative which can be seen in this video. The black and white filter also gives the video an older feel to it therefore it is very similar the the original indie rock songs for the 70s and 80s. This similarity will make it popular with the older generation.

Audience Research - Biffy Clyro

Biffy Clyro is a Scottish alternative rock band made up of 3 members called Simon Neil, James Johnston and Ben Johnston. They are currently signed with 14th Floor Records. The target audience for the band is 18-25 year olds but slightly more popular with females. However, they target their music at both males and females. The band is also popular with 40-50 year olds. This is because indie and alternative rock was popular back when this age group were teenagers therefore it's the music they grew up with and still follow to this day. This has been the same with all the indie bands we have researched so far therefore showing a clear trend in the target audience of the genre.

Biffy Clyro signing autographs.jpg
In their video for "Biblical" they employ characteristics which will attract all of their target audiences. First of all the establishing shot is full of dark and bleak colours such as blacks and browns. This is a classic genre convention of the indie rock genre therefore linking back to the older indie rock videos of the 1980's. This will attract the older generation as it will remind them of the songs they listened to when they were teenager therefore this link will make them interested in this song. The younger female audience members will be attracted by the star treatment in the video. Front man Simon Neil is attractive and he stars in the whole video therefore making the video attractive and interesting for this target audience. Finally the younger males will like this video as a lot of the mise-en-scene presents violence such as punching the glass window and the thugs beating up Neil with baseball bats.

These characteristics are repeated throughout the bands other music videos. For example, in "Black Chandelier" the background is often dark with black and white being a motif for the genre. The band members also appear topless therefore creating a voyeuristic feel for the video. The narrative of the video is also violent as it contains a police chase with helicopters.

Audience Research - Kasabian

Kasabian

Kasabian feature many similarities to Howl in their musical style as an alternative rock band so are a useful reference point in terms of interpreting Howl's music. They're a British indie rock band from Leicester that formed in 1997. Amongst their successes they have released 6 albums, headlined the Glastonbury Festival in 2014 and won the Brit Award for Best British Group. They are popular currently amongst young people so their fans can be thought of as a potential target audience for our video.

According to YouGov, Kasabian appeal to lower class people, are marginally more popular amongst women and left-wing, young people. They have been on the music scene since 2004 and so are relatively current (they released an album in 2017). As a result of this, they have lots of older fans in the 40+ age range but also some younger 18-25 year olds as the genre of indie rock had slipped out of fashion in the 2000s but has had a recent resurgence in popularity.

(Data from YouGov.co.uk)

Here is an example of a recent music video by Kasabian (September 2017)

Ill Ray (The King) - Kasabian




The video can be seen to significantly highlight Kasabian as a British band from Leicester as there are many references to this town and elements of British culture. The video is inspired by the discovery of King Richard III's body underneath a Tesco car park in Leicester and creates a quirky narrative around this where a woman resurrects Richard III and takes him around modern day Leicester. As well as an homage to Leicester through depiction of landmarks like Abbey Park, the video can be seen to appeal to both young and old fans of Kasabian. The video casts Lena Headey and Michael Socha who are known from Game of Thrones and This Is England respectively, both of which are shows currently very popular amongst young people. The older audiences are also catered to through the quirky humour of seeing Richard III interacting with a modern day Britain. The band also don't appear in the video, which isn't uncommon in indie rock videos.


Days Are Forgotten - Kasabian




This is an earlier song from the band, released in summer 2011. The video again links the band to the indie rock genre due to the inclusion of band performance and commonly-used black and white filter. The performance setup is enhanced by animated white lines that add an artistic and creative aesthetic to an otherwise standard concept. The video here has an almost universal appeal due to its simplicity, again allowing it to be accessible to both younger and older fans of the band.