Video Timeline

Video Timeline

This was our first attempt at a mock time-line. Above is a visual estimation of when we will bring in each of our three elements.

Our Artist's Target Audience

Our Artist's Audience

Who is the audience that we aim to sell our album to? At the end of the day, any record company will invest in an album to MAKE MONEY, there's nothing more true than that. Therefore we have to cater our product to a formed audience in order for it to be accepted well.

To simply choose who the audience is, VALS and the JICNAR scale can categorise the buyers into a small group. Our audience is likely to be between the ages of 15-17, and so teenage VALS can be used. Using the odd choice of words given, our audience would fit somewhere between drifters and utopians, who some could call hippies. They at their young age have no serious issues, and simply 'wanna spread the love'. I'd say the audience would also tend towards being made up of boys, simply due to the drug culture within

Our artist will appeal to this audience, through his laid back attitude, lazy clothing, and childish imagination. No aggression or rioting will be promoted but instead the product will just be a feel-good album. Naturally young people are renown for trying drugs and so the psychedelic 'trippy' video will be accepted well. The artist himself will also be very young, and so the free-lovin' teens will be able to relate to him more.

Mood Board for our Target Audience's Interests

Selecting Props

Props

The props we want are fairly simple. As a group we all had the idea of giant ice creams within the video. Originally we had the plan to make paper-mache ice creams. However having looked at youtube tutorials we realised this would look cheap, the colours wouldn't pop and the overall look would be amateur. Instead we found large swimming pool inflatables on amazon which were perfect. The colours would really stand out in the white setting and it reduces planning time in terms of creating our own props.

For the instruments, we plan on only using a keyboard. The song contains a few instruments, and so to maintain the clean look, one keyboard seemed fitting. In previous 80's music video the keyboard plays an essential role, and we wanted to include this convention in our video.


Our school owns a large number of different keyboards, and so we wanted an ice white one to match the set. This should be easy to aquire, and it will fit nicely with the theme.

Ideas for the Website and Digipak

The Website and Digipak

Whilst preparing the video itself I've been thinking of some potential ideas for the website and digipak. The most obvious approach to this was an ice cream theme and so here are a few picture ideas:

Organising an Ice Cream Van

Organising an Ice Cream Van

Here is the email Harry sent in order to start our search for the ice cream van.

Finalising Our 3 Elements

The Music Video.

First Element;
Our artist is an ice cream vendor, miserable at the window of his van. We see him serve various anonymous customers but he vacantly stares at the camera performing. We aim to shoot as many shots as possible in and out of the van. He wears a white coat, white shirt with bow tie, a vendors hat and black trousers.

Second Element;
A white void with subtle blue lighting and cold smoke. We aim to make it like an abstract vision of the inside of a freezer. In this studio we will have three dancers, each on individual podiums, each wearing tight silver dresses. We want the dancers to be blonde girls, moving slowly and fluidly to the song. In the foreground there will be large inflatable ice lollies and ice creams 'dotted around'. In the background we aim to have the van, if we can get it into the studio. Our artist will be in the same costume as before,  playing on a white glossy keyboard.

Third Element;
The same studio space as before, but more eccentric. The artist now wears a white tux instead of a coat, and a pair of ice cream style sunglasses. The colours are more bold too, with bright blue and pink lighting. The dancers themselves move faster, jumping around the artist and switching positions.
The keyboard is now a kids toy keyboard instead of a white glossy one.

What Are VALS and Jicnar Scales?

What Are VALS and Jicnar Scales

Audience Profiling...

Institutions will only invest in an album to make money. Audience profiling help institutions divide audiences into segments. This is achieved both demographically and psychographically. 

Demographic segmentation - Social criteria such as gender, race, class and sexuality. One common demographic approach to audience involves the JICNARS scale.

Psychographic Segmentation - based on lifestyle choices, beliefs, values and attitudes. VALS, the Values Attitudes and Lifestyles classification system is the best known system

Developing on Feedback

Costumes...

We have decided to go for a more abstract look for the ice cream girls. Where before they wore full 'Mr Whippy' style outfits, they now will wear tight silver body suits, with white high heel boots. Hopefully all three will be blonde, to reflect vanilla ice cream





For the Artist we are sticking to the traditional ice cream vendor look. However when we move into the studio with bright colours, he's dressed in a white tux, with ice cream sunglasses on. We want the outfits to slowly become more wild throughout the video, with more accessories throughout.







The Inflatables

In the foreground of the studio we plan to have large pool floats that look like ice lollies.
We really don't know how many we will need to fill the space so right now at a guess we would need to obtain 4 large floats and as many small ones as our budget allows.

Treatment FeedBack

Things That Need Considering...

Firstly the song needs cutting down, as it will be incredibly difficult to film enough interesting footage to fill the time. Another thing mentioned was that all the ridiculous costumes would make the video look cheap and unprofessional. Instead we could go for more symbolic outfits. Some ideas include dressing the icecream girls in Neapolitan themed dresses or even less obvious, shiny, silver dresses.

The ice cream van idea is really good, and if we could do it, the feature would really add a professional tone. However the transitions
between sets need to be fully planned out. Are we cutting directly between elements or are we transitioning through smoke? The video doesn't need to be so narrative either, and the child walking his dog idea doesn't really add much other than a way to the van. Instead we could focus around the ice cream vendor instead and remove the boy. This would also help us shoot the video within the time constraints as we'd only have two sets. Originally we pitched an almost clockwork dance for the ice creams but the feedback we got preferred the idea of a smooth silky dance to relate to the smoothness of ice cream.

The story behind the ice cream seller could be to do with lost dreams, and have him hate his job. This would fit nicely with the crazy visuals as it could be him imagining a 'happy place' or even losing his mind. We could portray the ice cream man's imagination with a psychedelic style, potentially using a kaleidoscope style. Another suggestion was to include some impossible 'mind-blowers' like a continuous zoom into infinite ice cream van windows. This could look genuinely great, especially if we used the green screen to our advantage. A small comment was that the ice cream inflatables may be to small and insignificant to be fully noticed, and so large, colourful floats are necessary.




Finally for the end of the video, it was suggested that the camera pulls all the way out of the studio, through the van, out the window and in front of the van where the ice cream man hands over a lolly to the audience.


A trippy video showcasing the endless kaleidoscope style

Overall I picture the video to be more based around the ice cream vendor's dreams of being more, in his psychedelic ice cream dream world. I want to attempt the kaleidoscope effect, as the ice creams and lollys would make a brilliantly colourful visual.  

The Group Treatment

The Group Treatment

Here is our group treatment, created by Harry Waters, Sean Harrison and myself. For this pitch, we had to create a presentation and we also chose to create some photo sheets so that our audience could get a visual idea of what we picture. These can be seen below.

Lighting and Colour Scheme

Props

Costume

Selecting Our Idea

Selecting Our Idea...

As we grouped up, choosing the idea was fairly easy. We all liked this idea, which my friend Sean created:

http://seanhurtwoodmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/summer-holiday-work-task-1.html

We all instantly threw ideas around on various elements that could possibly be added.
So far the video consists of a boy going out walking with his dog, before finding an Ice-Cream van and going into a weird childish Ice-cream land.

We all like the light-hearted feel to the video, as it matches well with the song.

For our backup idea we are using my idea for the Nothing But Thieves song, Trip Switch. The idea is still as before, except the idea of the shop being robbed for medication is out.

Music Video Groups

Music Video Team

Today we set our groups for the upcoming music video shoot. I have been partnered with two close friends; Harry and Sean.

We all work well together and to start off with we have been productively throwing ideas around.

We set up a group chat as well and exchanged emails and timetables

Developed Idea

Music Video Idea 1 After Feedback...


A teenage boy is caring for his younger sibling. We open by seeing a light switch being turned on. It's Christmas day and the younger brother/sister is ill in bed. The older brother puts a sad looking santa hat on him, gives him some buttered toast and leaves embarrassed that he couldn't give him more. He then leaves the house, picking up a paper bag on the way out. As he walks the down the street we get the sense he doesn't feel welcome. We see judgemental residents, scared looking children and violent looking dogs. As he continues to walk, we see him peak into the bag, which contains a handgun. He picks up his speed and in doing so reveals where he is headed. A local newsagents. He then goes into the shop and after nervously making up his mind, takes out the gun and begins to rob the place. We see his nerves, and the judgemental faces of witnesses around him. He is wearing a typical teenage outfit of tracksuits and a black puffer jacket, with his hood up. Finally having taken the money from the cashier, he looks around and sees a line of Xmas teddy bears. He takes one and stuffs it in his bag on top of the pile of crumpled notes. He then proceeds to run from the shop and sprint back to the council house he lives in. The weather is gloomy and cars beep their horns as he runs in front of them. Having gotten home, he reveals a recently bought bag of food, and gives his sibling the teddy. The last thing we see is the stuffed bear being cuddled.

Throughout the video there is one other element, which is an aggressive band performance. The band have two separate scenes, where both are identical but the scenery is different. In one they wear all black in a white void and the other they wear all white in a black void. The edit will cut back and forth between these to the music.

The symbolic idea behind the video is that people aren't always how they seem, and although it may look like someone is doing something wrong, it  may be for a good purpose.

Feedback on First Music Video Idea

First Idea - Trip Switch

• Think about the dog breed, how easy would it be to obtain a scary looking dog
•  The black and white band theme, matched with grey colour scheme is nice
• Like the idea of an aggressive performance from the band.
• Cool narrative but doesn't fit in England, the NHS exists so robbing a shop to pay for medication is unrealistic. Other ideas include robbing from a toy shop for a younger sibling
• Think about ability to use a corner shop local to school suited for filming
  

Second Idea - Shouldn't Have Done That

• Filming in London is a challenge, especially late in the evening
• Choreography is a big part - what type of dance would feature?
• Develop the neon with the shadow concept, could be a really visually amazing concept
• Film in the studio instead, using neon street signs as a backdrop continuing the idea of the shadow moving separately
• Another narrative or performance needed using similar colour schemes
• Artist duo could wear full neon suits, with matching instruments.