Equipment

Similar to the props, this is a list of all the equipment we need, not to be in our music video but to actually make the music video itself. These parts were extremely important as we would not be able to film with these.

- Camera
- Digital Camera
- Tri-pod
- Music + Lyrics

Props

We then needed to make a list of every prop we were going to use, this was vital because then we knew exactly what we needed to get and in what scene we needed to use it. This meant we could film straight having already got everything we needed.

Items needed are:

- Microphone
- Drums
- Microphone stand
- Handbag
- Pregnancy test
- Seringe
- Lighter
- Rope
- Dinner set
- Candles
- Wine glasses
- Rose Petals
- Plates, knives&forks etc.
- Rose
- Mirror

Locations

These are the locations we decided on for each scene, it was important that we got these right as we needed to scenary to match the sitatuation of the person. It was also important to note that if it was outside what time of the day would we want to film etc. All of this needed to be just right to make our music video as effective as possible.

1) Woman running away
- Common Field
- Dark/ dusk
- Street lights

2) Pregnant woman
- Small toilets
- Possibly public or school
- Lonely

3) Drug abuser
- Dark / dingy
- Small
- Hardly any furniture

4) Abandoned child
- Motorway bridge
- Busy
- Dark

5) Relationship Break up / meal
- Nice house
- Dinner table
- Clean and tidy

6) Singer / drummer
- College, white background
- Minimal
- focus on drums and singers face

Extra's Needed

This is just for other things we will need to create our music video all the miscillaneous objects. These are important because we wanted to add effects and quick cuts in we found that simply objects used in music video edited in a particular way were really effective.


- Rose petals being pulled off - re winded

- Mirror broken/ glass - re winded

- Traffic (night) - fast pace

- Emphasis words - love, blood, heart beat

- Clock

- Drum - beat

- Black and white & Sepia effects

- Letterbox frame

Character List

Because we had so many characters we needed to find someone to play each, this list shows who is playing what part in what scene:

Woman running away - Jess Johnson

Pregnant woman - Candice Mcmullin

Drug Abuser - Lucy Fell

Abandoned child - Teylor Webber

Relationship break up woman - Chloe Dennis

Relatioship break up man - Ainsley Griffith

Young child - Scarlett Evans

Female Vocalist - Natasha Wootton

Male Drummer - Adam Howard

Costumes

Having already discussed how impotant the costumes of our characters are, we went on to further planning as to what each person would where in each scene, and how we want them to look on other aspects aswell.

Female vocalist
- Rocky/edgey
- Possibly 'boho'
- Dark make up - eyes
- Full fringe
- Volumised hair
- Leather jacket?
- Silver / black / grey

Male drummer
- Simple clothes
- Tshirt
- Jeans
- stylish hair

Pregnant woman
- Plain clothes
- Jeans
- Tshirt
- Minimal

Drug abuser
- Mascara down face
- Messy hair
- Dirty clothes
- Old clothes

Abandoned child
- Wrapped up, coat scalf hat
- Pale colours (innocence)

Break up man & woman
- Work outfit
- Smartly dressed
- Black / grey

Woman running away
- Casual dressed
- Bag

Mis-En-Scene

Mis-en-scene meaning everything inside a scene, like props, lighting costumes etc. We realise its important to consider each one of these factors as they contribute a whole deal to our music video. In some cases they set the mood, give off a certain vibe show you about a character etc.


Lighting: We want to create a certain effect in some scenes, particular when it comes to our main singer, we want several lights on her so she is in the spotlight. For this we main need to borrow lights or even hire some to make sure we give the right effect for that particular scene.


Props: Props are extremely important, the content of a scene can show where that character is, what that character is doing. It is important we make a list of these so we know what we need and for what scene so we can each prop for that particular
scene.


Location: Location was vital, we needed the right place to send off the right mood and reflect the situation the character was in.


Costumes: We needed the right costumers for each character, what they looked like would immediately give an impression off to our audiences so it was important we got this right.

This is an example of the type of scene we would like to create:

Content of our music video

Due to the lyric in our chosen song, we decided the meaning behing the lyrics was all about suffering and pain. And the ignorance towards these things. So for our music video we wanted to show the same suffering throughout, we decided to do this by showing a number of different situations in which someone was was expieriencing pain. In order to show this clearly in our music video we planned each seen throughlly before hand so we knew exactly what the objective for each different sitatuion was.


1) Woman running away from home
- Posh house, showing it doesnt matter how wealthy are.
- Bedgragled, looks a mess!
- Lipstick up face, normally tidy hair falling out.
- Bag with a few things in , falling out shows rush

2) Pregnant woman
> Sitting on her own, lonely
> Got no family
> Crying in a messy room

3) Drug abuser
> Either alcohol, pills, needle to show extremity
> Alleyway/field or dark room
> Untidy, messy, dirty apearance

4) Abandoned child
> Innocence
> On there own, no one around
> Possibly crossing a busy road or on motorway bridge
> Poverty

5) Relationship break up
> Abuse / verbal
> Throwing objects around
> Man walking out, woman left to clean up
> Heart-break

6) Meal
> Woman laid out a nice meal
> Table set, candles out
> Sat waiting for husband
> He comes in late and doesn't bother with her
> Either drunk/ ignores/ doesn't come

7) Young child
> On her own
> Possibly care seat or car
> Possibly at park
> Left to play alone

Our Final Choice

We decided on Nneka - heartbeat because it was a different sounding song, and had a strong beat throughout. We had plenty of idea's and felt we were capable of creating something effective for this. Here is our brainstorm of idea's for what we felt the music video could include.

Possible Sound Tracks

When deciding what song we would use for our music video, it was important for us to consider all options and what we thought we could create something for. We also wanted to look at different genre's so we had a variety of idea's. In order to do this we brain stormed all our possible options considering what we could do for each one and then ulitmately deciding on just one. We came up these 3 songs and then went on into more detail about the music video itself.

• Timbaland - bounce
• Step up 2 - mash up
• Nneka - Heartbeat

We then consider which of the elements we would put into each and which we felt was possible to create but which would also be effective.


Timbaland - Bounce

• graphics on a white background
• artistic
• bright colours
• special effects
• quick cuts
• electro vibe

This was my favourite song but we deiced all the effects we wanted to put into it would be the hardest to create, it would be based upon computer generated graphics which would have been time consuming to do and also quite tricky.

Step up 2 - Mash up

• contrasting dance styles
• ballet to street dance
• fast past, quick cuts
  

This was a mash-up track a combination of different songs all blended together, this would be the most original and different but we decided this too would have been hard to create because we wouldn't of been able to get everything we needed for this. the street dancers in particular but also ballet dancers.

Nneka - Heartbeat

• focus on drum beat
• drum kit
• different life stories
• suffering
• e.g. running away, drug abuser
• focus on lyrics
• meaning of words

At first i wasn't too sure on this song as we wanted a song that wasn't well known, so comparisons to the actual video couldn't be made. However we felt we could do the most with this video and managed to generate the most idea's.

The History of Music Videos

Music videos were first produced in 1926 due to the arrival of the sound films and talkies. Vita phone shorts, which were produced by Warner Bros, featured many bands, vocalists and dancers. The series entitled Spooney Melodies was the first true musical video series. The shorts were typically about six minutes in duration, and featured art deco style animations and backgrounds combined with film of the performer singing the song. This series of shorts can arguably be considered to be the earliest music videos.

Animation artist Max Fleischer introduced a series of sing-along short cartoons called Screen Songs, which invited audiences to sing along to popular songs by 'following the bouncing ball'. Early 1930s cartoons featured popular musicians performing their hit songs on-camera in live-action segments during the cartoons. Blues singer Bessie Smith appeared in a two-reel short film called St. Louis Blues featuring a dramatized performance of the hit song. It was shown in theatres until 1932. Numerous other musicians appeared in short musical subjects during this period. Later, in the mid-1940s, musician Louis Jordan made short films for his songs, some of which were spliced together into a feature film Lookout Sister; these films were, according to music historian Donald Clarke, the ancestors of music videos.

This was one of the first music videos to ever be made:



Music videos represent a crucial part of the music industry. Artists owe their careers to music videos as they are being given the chance of impressing the public not just with their vocal talent, but also with their looks or moves.

Thirty years ago, music video used to be less important then it is nowadays. MTV (Music Television) was the phenomenon that gave so much power and importance to the music video. MTV started broadcasting in 1981 in the USA and it marked the beginning of the music video’s ruling over the music industry. The first video ever played on MTV was ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ by The Buggles. As MTV was broadcasting 24-hour-a-day music, music videos were needed to be produced. Consequently, music video began to play an important role in artists’ careers. It is considered that even Madonna’s career has been greatly influenced by her videos that presented a sexy, appealing look of the artist. Some experts say that Madonna has been inspired by the image that the actress Greta Garbo has used in her silent movies. MTV has been highly controversial: some saw as the beginning of an amazing, new, fresh era in music, others considered it to mark the end of true musical talent, as artists have been become more appreciated for their looks instead of their vocal abilities.

Nowadays, the music video is as important as the song itself, sometimes even deciding the success of a song or artist. Collections of music videos are being sold on tapes or DVDs. Music video’s greatest fans are apparently watching them muted just to enjoy their artistic value, as they consider it to be a new form of art. They consider that a music video should be assessed based on its visual qualities and not on the song quality. It seems that the music ‘gurus’, corporate managers, have realised the potential of using female sex-appeal in music videos, therefore this feature is being used excessively as it is more popular for the public.

There are numerous music channels available today that broadcast a particular genre of music video. These are easy accessible, plus sites like YouTube allow you to view exactly the same thing via the Internet.

Here is an example of one of the latest music videos:



Comparing this music video to the first ever one really shows us how much technology has change, has developed. Things directors are now able to do which previously would of been impossible. The themes behind the music videos are completely different the style etc.


It was important for me to go back to the roots of music videos, as i feel this research will help me in creating my own. I now understand the reasons behind why music videos were first created and the intentions of music videos. Today music videos are essential into the promotion of a single and an everyday part of an artists career.

Genre's Of Music

Music can be divided into genres in many different ways. Closely related styles can over-lap and it may be hard to label a particular artist with just one genre. Labelling music with genres often do not reflect a specific culture, race, or time period. Larger genres consist of more specific sub genres.
These are some genre's that i considered to be the main ones:

• Rock
• Pop
• Classical
• Jazz
• Hip Hop or Rap
• R&B
• Indie
• Dance
• Alternative

These are obviously not all the genre's you could have but some of the larger ones that can then be split up into sub-genres, music has such a wide range it is impossible to narrow every artist, down to just one of these.