Final Costume Ideas

Our Band consists of 4 members, a drummer, a bassist, a vocalist and a lead guitarist.

As I was in charge of the costumes featured in the music video, I conducted some research into the costumes wore in various rock music videos, as these were most likely to feature musicians playing instruments.

I discovered that most videos feature the band wearing casual, everyday clothes. This is because the band are usually performing very energetically, so wearing elaborate costumes would be impractical.

For our music video, the vocalist/lead guitarist will be wearing:

A band tee shirt with a Demin jacket over the top
Jeans
Doc Marten Boots.

The Bassist will be wearing:

A plain tee
Jeans
Trainers




















The Drummer will be wearing:

A tank top/band tee
Jeans
Trainers.







These choices give our band a casual look, but tie them together through the use of different band tees. It gives us ample opportunity to use unique camera angles to highlight the different clothing of the band.

Roles within our Group

We had a group meeting on monday, and assigned ourselves these roles

Director: responsible for making artistic decisions about the film. We decided that the group would be more unified if we had an overall leader, although we could all present our ideas and be listened to. We decided to elect Rhya as our director.

Assistant Director: assists the director and organises the film shoot. Max and Kyle assumed the role of assistant directors.

Camera Operator: responsible for recording the shots with the camera. Max and Rhya are the camera operators, as Kyle will be featured in the music video. 

Grip and Runners: responsible for carrying heavy camera equipment or tripods and  any jobs or errands the director or 1st assistant director needs doing. All of the group are assuming this role, as we can share the load of carrying equipment to shooting locations. 

Extra Crew Members

 Clapper Loader: responsible for logging completed shots and using the clapper board! 

 Rhya is taking on this role as she is the Director.

Continuity: Ensuring that there are no errors in costumes from scene to scene, or changes in time. The entire group will fulfill this role.

Art Department: responsible for props and set design.  Kyle and Rhya will be responsible for this.

Actors: responsible for performing or appearing in front of the camera. Kyle will be an actor, and different Oldershaw students will be used in the music video. 

Extras: responsible for appearing in crowd scenes. Oldershaw students will be used as extras.

Wardrobe: responsible for costumes, hair and make-up. The group will share ideas in regards to wardrobe.

Sound Mixer: responsible for monitoring the sound levels and recording on set if you have an external microphone. 

Music Video Ideas: Band Location

Deciding on where the band would be filmed was an important factor in our decision making process. The band shots will make up around 40-50% of the music video, which means that they need to very well organised and filmed.

We looked again at the video for Mallory Knox's "Oceans". In the section of the video where the band is being filmed, they are stood inside a large grey studio, with lights and equipment surrounding them. We really liked this idea, and decided that we would incorporate it within our video.


We also liked the video for "You won't last long in the desert" by The Blackhand, as it featured the band performing amongst sand dunes near the beach. We thought it would be an interesting idea to film the band outside, and we were going to use the school field for this task.

Organising these locations will require lots of planning. These are the tasks that we need to accomplish.

• Gaining permission to use the Studio for filming
• Gaining permission to use the Cargo Trolley to transport the instruments
• Gaining permission to use the lighting rigs.
• Organising a time period for filming and ensuring costume and props are available

We have already ensured that we are able to use the Instruments after we sent a permission slip to the Music department.

Music Video Ideas: Postcards

In our monday meeting, we brainstormed ideas for the 'story' part of the video.

We came up with an interesting idea inspired by two music videos:

Dirty Little Secret by The All American Rejects

All about the Money by The Blackhand

Both of these videos feature extras holding placards and postcards. The first video has people confess their dirtiest secret on postcards which are held up, and the second video asked members of the public and the band's friends, "what would you do with £1,000,000?"

We liked these ideas because they allowed other people to be involved in the music video, and it was quite a unique Idea. 

We chose to develop the idea further by relating the postcards that the extras will be holding with the music video. For example, we will have some lyrics to the song posted on the card. "have you ever felt alone in a crowded room?" All of the cards will also be dark blue to relate to the song name.

Permissions Letter

we have been planning my filming and time management, while during lesson's we have been researching for music suitable for ourMusic Video. After research predominately using iTunes and YouTube we chose the song "Dark Blue" written by Jack's Mannequin. As the song is copyrighted I had to contact Jack's Mannequin asking for permission to use the music.

Re:     The Oldershaw Academy 

Dear Sir or Madam:

I am constructing a Music Video for my OCR A2 media coursework 

We understand that you are the owner of the copyright in the musical composition “(Name Song” and would like your permission to include the song in the advert.  

The song will not be used for public use and there is no intention to make any profit from the song. It is simply to support my OCR coursework and the audience is limited for education purposes only.

Your signature below, under “confirmed by,” will indicate that you will agree to permit this use without payment of a fee.  Please let us know if you have any questions concerning this license.  Also would you please let us know as soon as possible if this song cannot be licensed so that artistic changes may be made in the songs to be included in the production.  You can reach us in care of:

Mike Liddell

The Oldershaw Academy ,

Valkyrie Road,

Wallasey,

Wirral

CH45 4RJ

0151 638 2800

or

irwinmedia2@gmail.com

Thank you for your help with this matter and we look forward to hearing from you.

Yours Sincerely,

Irwin Media

M.G. Liddell                                               Mr M.G. Liddell

                                                                        Senior Deputy Head Teacher

                                                                        & Media Department

Target Audience

It is important that we know our target audience in depth, and also that we know how to attract them to buy our product - without this then our product will be a failure.

Our group decided that our target audience would be:

• 13-19 years old. The indie pop genre is dominated by teenagers, so this will be who we are targeting. Teenagers of all ages can enjoy the song so we have a broader range of ages and maturity. 
• Predominantly female. Fans of the genre are also mostly female, and targeting them will yield the most popularity for our products. We have used an all male band, which will attract our audience
• Interested in popular music. Our song is a typical upbeat pop song, and thus our audience should already have a keen interest in the genre.

Costume Research

I was placed in charge of the costumes and outfits that the band will be wearing in the video.

For our video I decided that our band would be wearing a casual attire, as this reflects the band's age range, and the upbeat, lighthearted tone of the video.

I looked at different music videos to see what outfits popular bands are wearing.

This image of the band mallory knox shows them wearing clothes from the brand "mostly". It is common for small bands to represent clothing brands as this gives both of them recognition. The band does not have a shared costume that is instantly recognisable, but the band's clothing style is similar.

Here is an image of the band "Catfish and The Bottlemen". This shot is interesting because there is a definite theme within the band. All of the band are wearing black clothes which creates an instantly recognisable look.

In this image of blink 182, the band members are wearing their own clothing brands. This is because they are a hugely successful band so they can self promote. This is not possible with our band, but we can promote other local bands by wearing their tee's.

Permission Slip

Our group needed to get permission to use the instruments from our music department, so I typed up this permissions slip. It is important that we had permission because we want to share our video on the internet, and without permission this wouldn't be possible.

Song choices

As a group, we each picked a selection of songs that we thought would work well for our music video.

These are the songs that we chose:

Kyle: 

Bohemian like you - The Dandy Warhols

I feel so - Box Car Racer

Going away to college - Blink-182

Rhya: 

Dark Blue - Jack's Mannequin

The Mixed Tape - Jack's Mannequin

Concrete Bed - Nada surf

Max:

Oceans - Mallory Knox

Kathleen - Catfish and The Bottlemen

Ghost in the mirror - Mallory Knox

We listened to each of these songs, discussing what we did and didn't like about them. 

We then stripped our choices down to one song each. 

Going away to college

Dark Blue

Oceans

We decided that we would use the song Dark Blue in our music video because we liked the upbeat rhythm, and we also thought we could use lots of dark blue colours and objects in our video. 

Interesting Camera Angles.

Now we are decided on our brief being a music video, we researched a variety of different videos spanning multiple genres and looked at the camera angles they used.

Our group is interested in filming the music video with two parts.

• A story featuring extras, other actors and different locations
• A performance from a band who are playing the song on their respective instruments

We look first at the band shots, paying close attention to the angles and effects used.

In this video from bar car racer's video for their song "I feel so", we liked this angle. 

This shot of the drummer is really interesting because it shows him surrounded by the drums, and he is also in front of the band's logo. We will use this shot in our video.

This lowshot of the guitarist is also interesting because it does not include his head, drawing attention to the guitar itself.

This close up of the singer brings intensity to the video. He is singing very emotionally, and it gives the video attitude  and edge.

This close up of the snare drum is excellent because it fills the screen with the snare drum, creating an interesting unique shot. It also allows the crack of the snare to break through the music because the viewer is focused on this instrument.

We really liked this shot because of the atmosphere created by the lighting. We will utilise a mixture of dim and bright lights to create a contrast between the band. 

This shot of the bass guitarist with the drummer in the background is interesting because it allows the viewer to focus on the rarely seen bassist, whilst also having the visual stimulus of the drummer. 

We will use all of these shots in our music video, and will be especially careful with regards to our lighting.

Our Main Task Decision

As a Group we have decided to create a Music Video, Digipak and Magazine advertisement. We felt that this brief would best showcase our skills, and we had a lot of ideas and plans that we wanted to implement.

Analysing Music Videos

The brief we agreed upon was the promotion package for an album, with a music video, a website homepage and a digipak for the album's release.

We looked at various music videos spanning multiple genres.

The music video for Nickleback's Rockstar is very simplistic.The video consists of different people singing different lines of the song and dancing. The challenging thing about this video is the sheer number of people involved.

We decided that we wanted the music video to follow two parts: The video will feature the band performing their song, and then a seperate story that will be edited in.

Analysing Product Adverts

The second brief our group researched was the product advertisement brief.

We watched various videos by JML on youtube, and discussed their suitability. The JML videos are very simple, as they showcase the product in an easy to view format. This would be good for our group to recreate, but we decided that it would be hard to showcase our talent with such a simple video.

For example, this video from JML only uses two actors, a voice actor and a silent actor. Most of JML's videos are in this format, meaning that this would work with our group of 3, but we decided against it as we preferred the music video task.

Analysing film trailers.

When deciding what brief we could be completing, we decided to research the different briefs that we had shortlisted.

The first thing we did was look at suitable film trailers.

We thought the Inbetweeners trailer would be the most suitable, as it follows four teenaged lads on their holiday abroad. The trailer is quite simplistic in nature, the only thing that would be hard to mimic would be the locations. The trailer does not feature any impossible to obtain props, or any high budget action scenes.

We decided against filming a trailer as we thought as a group we would achieve a higher mark by creating a music video.