First shoot

Here are some images from our first shoot:

Shooting schedule for first shoot

Shooting Schedule

Risk assessment - Shoot one

SWOT

SWOT analysis:

Strengths:

• We can use various lighting techniques in our band performance.
• Travelling down to Brighton, enables us to further our narrative and develop character.
• We have the costumes and the props to create a believable band.
• We have a song we can relate to, and will bring through a believable performance.
• We believe we have a strong narrative that will represent the lyrics.

Weaknesses:

• Travelling down to Brighton maybe difficult.
• Hard to meet together, due to work and events.
• Limited filming time, gets dark at 5.

Opportunity:

• To experiment with lighting.
• Creative narrative.
• To experiment with camera angles and shots during the band performance.
• To give a believable performance.

Threats:

• Filming in public places will be difficult.
• Will take time to get to Brighton, so wastes shooting time.
• Will take time to edit, so we need to leave ourselves with enough time to do so. 

Lyrics analysis

Someday -The Strokes

In many ways I'll miss the good old days
Someday
Someday.
It hurts to say but I want you to stay

Sometimes
Sometimes
When we was young, oh man did we have fun

Always
Always
Promises they break before they're made
Sometimes
Sometimes

My ex says I'm lacking in depth
I will do my best
You say you want to stand by my side
Darling your heads not right

I see alone we stand, together we fall apart
Yeah I think ill be alright
I'm working so I won't have to try so hard
Tables they turn sometimes

Oh... someday
I ain't wasting no more time

Trying, trying

And now my fears they come to me in threes
So I 
Sometimes
They fade, my friend, you say the strangest things
I find

Sometimes
Oh my ex says I'm lacking in depth
Still I will try my best
You say you want to stand by my side

Darling your heads not right
You see alone we stand together we fall apart
Yeah I think ill be alright
I'm working so I won't have to try so hard

Tables they turn sometimes
Oh someday
Still I ain't wasting no more time.

The repetition of "Someday', adds emphasis that the band are remembering their adolescent years, and wish they could relive those moments. This suggests that the band will have a fun nature, in the sense that they wish they could still be young and immature, conveyed by the opening line "In many ways I'll miss the good old days" and the line "when we was young, oh did we have fun". This line is followed by the repetition of "always" further portraying the band's lust for the past. This song also focuses on a break-up, and contrast to the earlier feel to the song, the band seem more mature over this issue, by not getting back with the "ex" as "Darling your heads not right". This maturity contrasts the bands lust to be young and youthful, as they recognise that a relationship is not what they need. The ellipsis in the line "Oh...Someday", takes the songs meaning back towards being young again. The ellipsis creates a pause, as if a pause for thinking and remembering the past. The colloquial term "ain't" also emphases being young, as this is a term usually used by the young, not by older, more mature and sophisticated adults. The four lines, starting with "And now my fears they come to me in threes", don't link. This suggests that the band are getting so caught up in the memories of the past, that it is hindering their thought process, and they no longer are making any sense because of it. However, the last line of the song "Still I ain't wasting no more time." conveys how the band have realised they now have to leave their past in the thoughts, and move on and just live for the future; a sign of their newfound maturity.

Planning Animatic

Here we are editing our animatic.

Props

The Epiphone Guitar: Conveys the rock image we want and has been used by other lead guitarists in other indie/garage rock groups. So therefore, it is a feature of our genre and we shall use it in our music video.













Bass Guitar: A must for our bass guitarist. It is needed to create the riffs in the opening of the song. Also a feature of our genre.

Microphone stand: Needed to portray the sense that the band is professional and conventional for music videos that feature a studio, as ours will.
















Microphone: Conventional for music videos that feature a studio.














Amps: Needed for the guitars, conventional to see in rock music videos where the band plays.













Drum kit: Conventional of a band performance. It is an important factor for our music video.

Evidence of Copyright

This is our evidence of Copyright; we sent a message to The Strokes over Facebook and hope to hear a response soon.

Schedule - February

February
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
						1st
2nd Editing	3rd Editing	4th Editing	5th Editing	6th Finish	7th	8th
9th	10th	11th	12th	13th	14th	15th
16th	17th	18th	19th	20th	21st	22nd
23rd	24th	25th	26th	27th	28th

Schedule - December and January

December
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
1st Planning	2nd Planning	3rd Planning	4th Planning	5th Filming	6th	7th
8th Editing	9th Editing	10th Editing	11th Editing	12th Filming?	13th	14th Filming?
15th Editing	16th Editing	17th Editing	18th Editing	19th Editing, Break up	20th	21st
22nd	23rd	24th	25th	26th	27th	28th
29th	30th	31st
January
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
			1st	2nd	3rd	4th
5th Editing	6th Editing	7th Editing	8th Editing	9th Editing	10th	11th
12th Editing	13th Editing	14th Editing	15th Editing	16th Editing, Re-shoot?	17th	18th
19th Editing	20th Editing	21st Editing	22nd Editing	23rd Editing	24th	25th Re-shoot?
26th Editing	27th Editing	28th Editing	29th Editing	30th Editing	31st

Schedule - November

This is our schedule for our music video. It will help us to accurately plan for our video, and know what we are doing and when.

November
Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
					1st	2nd
3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th
10th	11th	12th	13th	14th	15th	16th
17th Planning	18th Planning	19th Planning	20th Planning	21th Planning	22nd	23rd
24th Planning	25th Planning	26th Planning	27th Planning	28th Planning	29th	30th

Influential Music Videos

My influential music video is Reptilia by The Strokes. The intial reason I chose this was because it matched our genre, Garage Rock. However, it was most influential because of the chosen camera frames and the chosen shots. There are a whole lot of close-ups of the instruments and band members. The close-ups are very creative and stylish such as the shot of the drummer's shoe. From this we decided to input close-ups of instruments we are playing in the music video because we thought it would add style to our video. We will vary our shots because, like in this video, we will be playing in a studio therefore I think we will need different camera frames and different camera shots to vary it up because the audience don't want the same camera shots when it cuts back to us playing in the studio as our music video is going to be more than 3 minutes long. In the music video, there are close-ups of the whole band but mainly on the singer and especially when he sings. Close-ups of the band is a pretty common convention but still signinficant because close-ups is way for the audience to identify with the band.  From watching this video,  we will use close-ups of the band members faces to identify with our audience and shots of the instruments to vary our shots and close-ups of the insturments e.g. the guitar neck to add style.

Locations

Drama studio:                                               Why have we chosen it?

                                                                      We can shot our visuals of the band playing, and will also                        allow us to use lighting and creative camera work.

Clapham Junction: 

Why have we chosen it?
Establishing shot that will help our audience recognise that the band are going on a journey. Sets the narrative for our music video.








Brighton Station:

Why have we chosen it?

Establishing shot, show where the band have arrived to; furthering the narrative.







West Street, Brighton:

Why have we chosen it?
Another establishing shot, iconic shot of Brighton; furthering the narrative.









Brighton Sea-front:

Why have we chosen it?
Iconic shot of Brighton, will allow us to further the narrative. We for opportunities for creative camera angles, such as a high-angle shot. Fun attraction represent the laid-back nature of the band.







Brighton Pier:

Why have we chosen it?
Iconic, connotations of youth and rebellion; seen through the Mods and Rockers incident. Helps to convey the nature of the band.







Brighton City Centre:

Why have we chosen it?
Again it is iconic, furthers the narrative, enables for the character of the band to be shown.

Planning 7

We looked last lesson at locations,  after finishing audience research.  In today's lesson we shall complete our locations post and focus on completing our story board in order to start our animatic.

Audience research video

We we can gather from our audience feedback:

• Our audience would like to see the band playing, with close-ups to the instruments.
• They don't expect for our video to be soft.
• They don't expect a narrative that focuses on romance.
• They expect for there to be a high amount of energy in the performance.
• They expect a laddish performance.
• They expect the visuals to match the meaning and emotion of the song.
• They expect cuts between the narrative and the band playing.
• Some of our audience believe that a serious music video would be better, as it enables for the band to get their meaning across to their audience.
• Some of our audience would also like to see some light-heartedness, as to keep them entertained.
• They want the performance to be emotive and energetic.
• They also expect for their to be a story as part of the narrative to the video. 
• Some of our audience believe that the band should be seen between rarely and frequently, as they  saw that a story would help captivate the audience.
• Some of our audience believe that the band should play frequently, as they suggest that the genre requires for the band to be shown, as it conveys their musical talents.

Planning 6 - Audience Questionnaire

These are the questions we plan to ask our target audience for our questionnaire:

• What  would you expect from a rock music video? 

• What would you not expect from a rock music video? 

• Would you prefer a light-hearted music video or a serious music video? 

• How would you imagine the performance to be like?

• What you would expect the narrative to be like? 

• How often would expect to see the band playing in the music video? 

A- Rarely

B- Frequently

C- Majority

Target Audience

Our target audience will be predominantly teenagers of both genders and young adults. This is due to our genre and the persona we are creating for the band; fun and carefree. We may have a secondary audience of people aged between 25-35, but our teenagers and young adults are our main focus. Although rock is more popular amongst males, as most rock bands are all male, we feel that indie rock is gradually becoming more popular amongst females. Although most women normally prefer pop music, we feel that the tone and performance in our music video will help attract their viewings. Our easy-going persona of the band will relate to most teenagers, as they want to  be able to connect with the band and not get involved in hard to follow narratives, that they will have to think about whilst watching our video. We feel that it would be harder to connect with an older audience, as they will not particularly understand our narrative and will not understand the persona of the band.

Planning - 5

We have decided to change song's to the Strokes 'Someday'. During this planning session we decided what would be conventional of a for our new genre and what our audience would expect to see. We saw that we would keep our initial idea of having the band playing with various lighting and enabling close-ups of the band. We have also come up with our narrative, which shall be the band looking back at their day out a realising that they did barely anything.

Costumes



We decided to wear a bomber jacket. If we wore hoodies it doesn't reflect our genre and it would revert to more mainstream genre such as the rap genre. Therefore wearing hoodless jackets reflects our indie rock genre because it is not mainstream.

We also wont be wearing the exact same clothes because that could portray we that we are a boy band.

We are wearing casual clothes such as plain t-shirts and casual trainers to reflect our age.

Our intial pitch

Our initial pitch:

We intend to do a music video for the song 'Someday' by the Strokes. The song lyrics have connotations of looking back on the past and waiting for something to give in their life; something that will help us complete a vital section of a music video - visuals matching the lyrics. We intend for there to be two aspects to our music video; the first being the band playing and the second a subtle storyline. Both these aspects we see as being conventional of a garage rock music video. The band playing in the studio will enable us to give close-ups and convey that we are talented at playing instruments. The subtle storyline will help us to keep our audience entertained and create a persona for the band; our audience will be expecting this.

We shall wear casual clothing, as to maintain our carefree image of the band. This will be from plain white t-shirts and jeans and hoodless jackets and trainers. Dressing smartly will not match our genre and our audience will not be expecting this; neither will they expect us to wear hoodies, as they are too mainstream. The whole image is based upon not trying to be seen as mainstream, but more indie and casual.

We intend to film the band going on a day out, in which reflecting on it, they barely did anything and wasted the day away. This conveys the lyrics, where they are looking back on the past and wondering where they went wrong. The song is also about youth and having fun, we will incorporate this into our storyline as we believe that this something our audience will expect and will appreciate.

Influential Music Videos

The Libertines -  Time For Heroes





This video share many themes with ours as well as it being in the same genre of Garage Rock. The video also shows the band in their daily life, as will ours. The video creates the image that the band are against the rules and rebellious (such as jumping over barriers) and gives off an energetic, feel good vibe to the audience. The bands actions are also laddish, which helps the audience empathise with them and establish a greater relationship between the two. We will try to recapture the laddish theme by re-enacting different scenarios in several settings. The video is also shot on the streets, as will ours be, which again creates intimacy between audience and artist due to the fact that the audience can relate to the band being on a street. A close relationship is also created between the band on screen through the bands chemistry and their actions. There are also shots of drugs and alcohol, which reflect the rock 'n roll lifestyle, which we will not copy but we can recreate through other shots. All though we liked other features of the video such as the split screen we decided against it as we want more focus on individuals.

Influential music video

Don Broco - You Wanna Know

This video, I believe, has some aspects that would be relevant in the making of our music video. For a start, the genre is the same, so there is a performance aspect, which I believe will be influential to my group. The band are incredibly enthusiastic through this video, which helps them to give a convincing performance; we will have to do the same. Their performance conveys their passion for the song and the lyrics, something we should copy. The guitarists and the drummer look convincing, as they look as if they are actually playing, something that a enthusiastic performance would give. The close-ups of the lead-singer are also something we will have to replicate, as it enables the audience to get close with their star. It also helps transmit emotions to the audience, something that is very typical of a rock song. We also are planning to have different lighting in the background, to add various effects to our music video and make it more entertaining. We plan to have a silhouette of the band playing, as having the band playing is something conventional to a rock song. In this video there is very interesting lighting that creates almost the effect we are after; this is what made it an inspirational video for us. The lighting can be used to resemble the mood, and in this song the lead-singer is giving a very emotional performance. The red background conveys his anger, whilst the blue conveys his sadness, which is very effective as it helps add emotion to the song and a persona to to the band.

Garage Rock

Garage Rock:

Garage rock has become hugely popular in the UK over the past 40 year, since it began in the USA and Canada during the 60's. The sub-genre was formed on the basis of raw rock'n'roll and has a aggressive and unsophisticated feel, making songs in the this genre fairly heavy-going. 'The British Invasion' of the US during the 60's, was influenced by garage rock and allowed for the genre to receive world-wide attention. The genre is closely related to punk rock, as it contains similar aspects of the genre; it contains its raw sound, image and sometimes the meaning behind the lyrics. Newer bands have adapted these characteristics and have developed them into the modern day; bands such as 'The Strokes', 'The Arctic Monkeys' and 'The Libertines' have all helped maintain the genre's image. However, the British interpretation can be seen as more political and demonstrative, whilst the American view is more about life in general, such as 'The Strokes' song 'Sometime' is about wasting the time away and looking back into the past.

Change in song

We decided to change the initial song 'London Calling' by The Clash to 'Someday' by The Strokes. We decided to change the song due to us feeling that 'London Calling' was too much of an iconic song which would make it harder to break away from the original image. As we did not want to recreate we decided to change the song. As well as this we also felt that the topics of 'London Calling' were too heavy for our music video and we felt the issues raised in the song (issues such as Nuclear threats emerging from the Cold War) would be hard to convert into a video. All though these issues could be modernised there is not a lot we could translate the issues into.

We have changed the song to 'Someday' by The Strokes, as it is more relatable and we could translate more of themes of the song into our video. It is also more modern, meaning that ideas of the song would be easier to represent.

Planning - 4

This is our updated mind map. It shows all the issues that we have discussed over the last few days and represents some of our initial ideas.

Planning - 3

The original music video:

This is the original music video for our chosen song. It is very typical of a 70's  music video as it is very grainy and doesn't have any special effects. The video concept is very simple, which helps for the performance to convey the genre. We will re-create this. However, we will use after effects to attempt to make our film grainy like the original, as we feel it helps portray the genre. The performance is good and interesting, we shall attempt to copy this. Our lead singer will have to be animated and get involved with the music, this also goes to the rest of the band. The animated, expressive performance of the band helps to create the genre for the song, which will help us define our genre in our music video. We will film in London, like the original, and will feature different locations, unlike the original. We may not film at night, instead during a day where it is overcast. This won't give it the same effect, but it will have the same mood. We will attempt to keep the punk image, but turn it into a more modern-day punk rock image. We will also focus on the band playing, like in the original video.

Planning -2

We started to plan our idea on paper, although this doesn't look like much, our discussion was mainly verbal. We will do an updated version at a later point. 

Planning - 1

"London Calling"

London calling to the faraway towns
Now war is declared, and battle come down
London calling to the underworld
Come out of the cupboard, you boys and girls
London calling, now don't look to us
Phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust
London calling, see we ain't got no swing
'Cept for the ring of that truncheon thing

[Chorus 1:]
The ice age is coming, the sun's zooming in
Meltdown expected, the wheat is growing thin
Engines stop running, but I have no fear
'Cause London is drowning, and I live by the river

London calling to the imitation zone
Forget it, brother, you can go it alone
London calling to the zombies of death
Quit holding out, and draw another breath
London calling, and I don't wanna shout
But while we were talking, I saw you nodding out
London calling, see we ain't got no high
Except for that one with the yellowy eyes

[Chorus 2: x2]
The ice age is coming, the sun's zooming in
Engines stop running, the wheat is growing thin
A nuclear error, but I have no fear
'Cause London is drowning, and I live by the river

Now get this

London calling, yes, I was there, too
An' you know what they said? Well, some of it was true!
London calling at the top of the dial
After all this, won't you give me a smile?
London calling

 I never felt so much alike [fading] alike alike alike

We looked at the lyrics and decided what we could do to incorporate into our music video. Punk music during the 70's was highly topical, mentioning political, economic and social issues. This will be hard to both represent these issues in the modern day, or to those of the 70's. We feel that there is the possibility that we don't have to make our video topical, rather that we keep the punk rock image. 

This may be hard to recreate now as some of the issues such as "Now War is declared, and battle come down" or "A nuclear error" both concern the Cold War. This is obviously something that is not highly topical now and something that would be too hard to create in our video, especially as we are trying to update the bands image and not maintain. We can't do this as we feel the band's image is too iconic and we feel trying to recreate it would not work, as it  would be too hard to achieve. It would also effect our music video and we would lose our authenticity.

 

Our initial pitch

We intend to do "London Calling" by The Clash as our music video. The song has many possibilities for us and will enable us to be more creative with locations and our visuals. We all agreed that trying do a song from the 1970's would be difficult to re-create, as the era was well-known for its punk rock image. Today, the punk rock scene is almost, if not, gone. So in order to re-create this music video, we will have to dress in the 70's punk rock image. This will mean that we will have to look at the dress from this era, and keep the mise-en-scene realistic to that era.

 This is the sort of clothing we will have to try and re-establish if we want to make a successful music video.

As the song is from the 70's, there are some topical issues that don't match those of today. For example, the song hints at the nuclear crisis of the cold war and the fall in Beatlemania, of which we don't experience often today. So we will have to either attempt to change these issues into that of modern day issues or try and represent those issues in a unique way.

Seen as the song's title quotes "London", we feel this would be a good place to shot some of our music video. We don't want to film in typical London site-seeing sites, as we feel this isn't creative enough. The 70's were quite rebellious, and punk was at the forefront of this. During The Clash's original video for the song gloomy, poor-lit  run-down areas were used. We would like to re-create this as it represents the genre of music more appropriately. The gritty nature of punk rock will be recognisable through our locations and visuals.

We plan to film the other part of our music video in a studio, as this will give us the chance to experiment with lighting and performance. We intend to have instruments you would expect from a rock band; a drum, lead guitars and a base. We will show each of the band members playing their instruments, as this is typical of a rock music video. Our lighting will be fairly dark as to represent the genre and make our video more appealing to our audience.

We believe that if we get all of the above right, we can make an effective music video the will represent that of a successful punk rock music video.

70's Punk Rock

70's Punk Rock:

For our music video we are thinking of performing "London Calling" by The Clash. The Clash were a 70's punk rock band, and for us to represent them in our music video, we will need to know a bit more about the era and what the meanings were behind their songs.

Punk rock songs in the UK were based upon mainly political and economic issues. In "London Calling" the song refers to the nuclear crisis facing the world at the time. This was highly topical, as many people in London joined protest groups against nuclear warfare. Employment was low during the 70's and the youth were in a rebellious mood. The youth looked up to bands such as The Clash and The Sex Pistols as their way of disobeying authority.

By the late 70's, punk rock had entered a new era and was recognised as a form of music. The genre had split into sub-genres and was expanding. The clothing was different in different sub-genres, however punks were highly recognisable. Their clothing was generally a mix of bright and dark and was normally extravagant, hence why it was so recognisable.

We will have to look up this image and copy it if we want to create a successful music video. We may have to turn the issues noted in "London Calling" to that of the present day. For example the nuclear crisis isn't highly topical and we will have to either find an alternative or find another way of expressing the lyrics from the song.