Guest Speaker: Ollie Allgrove

Ollie Allgrove is an executive producer at a production company called The Mill, he had been a part of making many successful music videos as well as adverts for multinational companies. One of the most successful visual effects he made was for the film Gladiator in which he won the Oscars for best visual effects.

"Artists and technologists, makers of all media, working at frontiers of visual narrative." This is the motive that the company lives with. He goes on and explained that everything is possible as we can apply technology to storytelling which can bring anything alive. He showed us an advert of a fuel company SSE which includes an Orangutang which was completely created by CGI. The orangutang was created bit by bit, even all the hair were put there piece by piece in order to make it look like a real orangutang. The video can be seen below:

For the music video, he went on to express how the making of music video is a very competitive environment which means that our idea have to be very hooking and expressive in order to get produced. He suggests that this could be achieve through creating a successful promo and a well planned treatment. The treatment shouldn't include a lot of words but instead, use pictures in order to visualise the idea to the artists or the director that you would want to show the work to. The storyboards are also essential as it can help sell the idea by making it more visual and convincing. Nowadays there are many platforms in which new music videos can be promoted and grow into such as youtube.com or Vevo which makes the music video more accessible to the audience comparing to the past, creating more potentials for new producers and music videos to grow. The other video he showed us was the music video that he made for The Chemical Brothers, 'Wide Open.' This music video was a low budget video all done by 1 take in which he explained how sometimes simplicity is best. 

He also showed us the behind the scene editing of the music video, showing us how the technology have allow music video producers to create a phenomenal music video with a limited budget. 

He finished the talk with giving us a few tips in which i find can be very beneficial for us in producing our digipacks and creating our music video: Set your own rules- what this means is that you should stick with your own idea and deliver whats on the treatment onto the screen. Secondly, be the leader. As the director, I should know exactly what I want the actors to do as well as how I want them to look on the screen, therefore I should know and tell the actors exactly what to do as they will always seek guidelines from the directors. Finally, planning is everything. We should organise everything in advance; storyboard, timeline, treatments, completing all of this in advance would mean that we will have more time on the shooting day, limiting our budget and therefore create a better working environment.

Timeline: Home

Here we had created a timeline to sequence our music video 'Home.' This is to help us organise the whole planning of different shots and elements within the music video.

Pitch to Luke

Here me and my group finally pitched our idea that we planned over 3 weeks to our media department team in order to receive feedbacks on our idea, knowing whether it is doable or not and what could be improve etc.

Star Image Across Campaigns

 The website, my group looked at the band Xylo and we came to a conclusion that we want our website to be of a similar design: simple but cool. This homepage is very simple yet still makes the band very interesting, mysterious and gives the audience curiosity on the band image.

Another website that we took a look at was Alvarez Kings which is also another pop/indie band. Both of these websites do not have the photo of the actual artist, meaning that the artist is organic rather than synthetic- they sell their products for the quality of the song rather than the image of the band members. This website is more colourful in which I think would also work quite well with our band as the song is more upbeat and pop, making the colourful scheme works. 

For the album cover, we want to correlate it with some elements from the actual music video itself. Our music video includes a dark photographic room in which I think could also work as an album cover. The idea of using polaroid photos, photo collage could also work as it represents the narrative within the music video.  Here are some pictures that could be on the album cover:

Star Image

Richard Dyer made a statement about a star being a 'commodity' instead of an actual person. These stars are portrayed and constructed by the media company to be appealing to their target audience- allowing those record/media companies to sell more of their product linked to that star.

This theory is consisted of 2 paradoxes: the star must be both ordinary and extraordinary, the star must be both present and absent.

Ordinary and Extraordinary

Ordinary meaning that the audience can relate to them and therefore feel personal connection with the artists. However, extraordinary meaning that the audience will always look up towards these stars, seeing them as their idol, creates higher sales for the record company.




Present and Absent

Present meaning the artist must be active enough to keep their audience interested and follow their work- this will create publicity for their work as nowadays there are internet which can share information around very easily e.g. twitter, Facebook and etc. However, they must also be absent enough to allow the audience to talk about their work- always make the band seem interesting and not boring.

Negus' star theory stated that artists can be either organic or synthetic.

Organic Artists
According to Negus' theory, an organic artist refers to artists which are natural, they are the artists that have not been constructed by the media company. These bands grow by their own music instead of their image.

Synthetic Artists
Synthetic refers to the artists which were made up and constructed to suit their target audiences.

ABOUT OUR ARTIST
I would image our artist to be organic as the real artist itself is not very well known as an image- only through their actual song which means that the band is growing with their actual music and not their star image. For Dyer's theory, i would imagine the artist to be more ordinary than extraordinary as they seem to be more reachable than other big stars such as Justin Bieber or Nicki Minaj.

Presentation for our Pitch

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1sN3Fhsna_yiAMkF9SJxwzFSAhpR5NUU7cr6vq6kcOpg/edit?usp=sharing

Pitch Feedback from Luke

Yesterday me and my group created a presentation and a treatment to present to Luke. He liked the idea as a whole but suggested that we could make some changes to it to make it even better.

Firstly Luke really liked the idea of using quite a dark, mysterious band image to quite an upbeat song as it creates juxtaposition in which would work really nicely in the music video. Also, he liked the idea of using a shipping container as it creates a nice visual as well as easy access due to the fact that our media department owns a few as a storage- low budget.


However, he made a few points about the correlations between each elements which makes a lot of sense to me. He said that harsh industrial building background for the performance element may not work along with the delicate process of hanging up photos in the dark room. This point that he made will allow me and my group to work together and come up with new ideas on how to make these 2 element links together. Also, Luke suggested that using photos for the connotation of 'memories' are too cliche. He suggested that we should be more creative and express the work memory as something else that isn't overused. Another problem with using memories as the main narrative is that the main singer/actress will be 17 years old in which, for memories to work well, it should show the change in age. This means that we need children to play the role of her memory- age between 6-9 which will be a problem as working with children would be a challenge. Also there won't be as many significant memories as there would be for an old lady- making it not very appealing.


After the pitch, our group have decided that we will add a third element into our video as well as cutting off the 'zooming into memories' element as it will be very hard to execute from shots to shots. This pitch has been very useful to us as a group because now we now exactly what to improve on as well as what to cut out.

Digital Moodboard

Guest Speaker: Emily Teadrake

Emily Teadrake is a music video commissioner of Universal Music and Hollywood Records. She came and spoke to us through each stages of how a music video is made from scratch. She started off by saying how some artists have their own idea and the perfect picture of how they want their music video to be, meanwhile some doesn't. The ones that doesn't, Emily and her team has to come up with an idea for the music video which needs to please the band. The company then matches the artist with a suitable director who they think would work well together to achieve the perfect music video. She stated very clearly that it is very important to get everything sorted before the shooting day, storyboard, shortlists, treatments in which would take the company around 1-2 months to do prior of shooting day. Emily showed us a few of the company's own music video and stated that the visual needs to match with the context of the track, otherwise it wouldn't work very well. She showed us the storyboard and treatments in which explains the whole music video in a very short booklet. This treatment is very useful as it shows the director, the crew as well as the artists exactly what is going to happen in the music video.

Audience Profiling: Big Yellow Taxi- Lennon & Maisy

Lennon & Maisy is a girl duo which I think would be attractive to young teenage girls age ranging from 13-17 simply because the duo is relatable and can be a role model to these audience. The duo may contain a star image in which would attract these young audiences as the singers are portrayed as being beautiful, talented singers.





Some of the star image of the duo may include innocence, creativity and environmentalist. This is is due to the lyrics of the songs as well as the image of the duo being very innocent and singing about how the environment has changed over time.





The record label that would sign the band, in my opinion would be Atlantic Record. This is because it is a UK record label in which signed a lot of single artists as well as duos, including Hunter Hayes.

Looking at the JICNARS chart, I would expect the audience for this song to be around B to C1 purely because they are more likely to enjoy the more traditional songs as well as introducing these songs to their children in which is the target audience for the band.

 In the VALS scale, I would imagine the audience of this band to be in the 'Experiencers' category because these audiences are young and enthusiastic as well as impulsive and rebellious. These are young teenagers meaning that they are always ready for new possibilities and seeking to find new experiences.

According to the Teenage VALS scale, I would categorised the audience for this band to be Utopians as the lyrics stated clearly about how they want to better the environment as well as the duo star image being innocent which inspire their audiences to follow the same path.

Real Similar Artists: Big Yellow Taxi- Lennon & Maisy

Lennon & Maisy is a duo singer which sings indie country music. Similar artists I could think of straight away is Passenger and Hunter Hayes

Passenger














Passenger aka Michael David Rosenberg is an English Songwriter with the top chart single: Let Her Go. His songs are mostly about romance with break-up narratives making it suitable for young teenage girls.


Hunter Hayes

Hunter Easton Hayes is an American songwriter, singer and instrumentalist. He can play over 30 instruments and is currently signed with Atlantic Records Nashville. His first album was released in 2011. His music genre is considered as modern indie country.

Audience Profiling: Deluka- Home

I think the audience that would enjoy this kind of music would be young teenage girls all the way to late teenagers (13-22 years old.) This is due to the style of song and lyrics that the band offers as well as the star image of the band being relatable for young teenagers and middle aged women. Some of the value that the star image offers may include youthfulness as well as success against the odds in which connotes very well with this age group.

The record label that would sign our band would be RCA records. RCA records had signed with many famous pop rock singers such as Taylor Swift, The Strokes and Backstreet Boys. Although it is a very big record company, I think the genre of Deluka fits their criteria and will be very attractive to the record label company.

According the JICNAR scale, i believe the audience would be categorised between B to C2, just because they are more likely to be higher class than those who enjoys hardcore metal music. I would imagine their personality, lifestyle and attitude to be joyful, happy and fun.

Looking at the VALS scale, I would imagine the consumer of this band to be categorised as 'Experiencers.' This is because they are more likely to be enthusiastic as well as impulsive. They are constantly exciting, seeking new experiences. These people are more likely to spend  their money on clothing, music and other creative goods rather than buying video games or sports.

According to the teenage VALS scale, I expect the audience to be in the trendies category just mainly because the fact that most audiences are young teenage girls. These girls are likely to just want to be accepted by their friends which put them into this category.

Real Similar Artists: Deluka- Home

Deluka is a pop/rock band in which, in my opinion, is very similar to other really famous pop/rock band such as The Script, 1975 and 30 Seconds to Mars.

The Script

The Script is an Irish pop rock band formed in 2001, Dublin. The song usually sings about love and break-ups in which supports the demand of teenage girls wanting to listen to love stories and break-up narratives which they can relate to.

1975


The 1975 is an English indie rock band formed in Cheshire in 2002. The song also sings mostly about love and bad break-ups in which, again, connotes to their target audience of teenage girls.

Audience Profiling: Scarlet- In This Moment

In This Moment's audience are most likely heavy metal fans- what the community calls "metalheads." These fans are aged ranging between late teenagers (16-17) all the way to early adulthood (31-34 years old.) They are usually portrayed as being rebels; wearing dark clothes with tattoos and body piercings as well as stretched ears.

Some of the value of the star image of the band includes violence, rebellious and sinister, making these audience very appropriate for the band as well as filling in the gap in the market for these consumers.

The record label that would sign our band would most likely be Visible Noise as it only sign solely British metal/alternative rock bands. Their signings include Bring Me The Horizon, Bullet For My Valentine and Your Demise in all which are alternative metal bands. 

According to the JICNAR scale, I believe that the audience for this music video would be classified as between C1 to E as these people are more likely to behave with their attitudes, personality and lifestyle which conveys with the target audience for the band; being quite rebellious, violent, wearing dark and goth clothes. These people are also more likely to have an antiauthoritarian attitude, meaning that they wouldn't obey authority therefore emphasises the point of them being rebellious.

According to the VALS scale, I think that the target audience would be classified as 'Experiencer' due to the fact that these fans are always rebellious and are always seeking new things which also ties in with the star image of the band 'In This Moment.'

Finally, looking at the teenage VALS scale, I think the category 'Rebel' fits the target audience the most as they are portrayed as wanting to remake the world in their own image without caring for the consequences of their actions. I think this category fits perfectly with the star image of the band.

Real Similar Artists: Scarlet- In This Moment

Bring Me The Horizon 

BMTH is an alternative metal band formed in 2004. It is based in Sheffield, England with a total of 6 albums so far which 3 of them hit the top 10 charts in UK. All their songs are quite dark with some kind of screaming, lyrics are often about real social issues such as social abuse, drugs and bad break-ups in which brings their audience together through their taste and understanding of their music, rather than the star image itself.

Website: http://www.bmthofficial.com

Bullet For My Valentine

BFMV is a alternative/pop metal band formed in 2003 with a total of 5 albums. The style of the band doesn't involve as much screaming but more catchy, pop chorus. This is due to the shifting of the band from a heavy metal to a more soft, pop metal to fit with the desire of new audiences. Their lyrics are mostly about bad break-ups, social issues, religions and sometimes demons. They are portrayed as being a cool, emo and rebellious band.

Website: www.bulletformyvalentine.com

Star Image: Big Yellow Taxi

Nanci made this word cloud to associate all the connotations of her star image for the actresses in the music video.

Star Image: Deluka- Home

Evelyn created this Word Cloud using the website www.wordclouds.com to show all the words associated with the star image of the band that she thinks will be suitable for the band being shot in the music video. 

Group Ideas: Evelyn's Idea

Evelyn's idea involves an indie rock band called "Deluka" with the song "Home." Her idea for this music video is based on the lyrics in the song, singing "So let me go home, home, home..."

Her narrative involves a band setting up for a gig in which the singer (age 17-19) is getting a stage fright right before her performance, but ends in her going up to the stage with confidence. Her idea is that "home" doesn't need to be physical but its a mental place for her mind for comfort. The video would start off in black and white- showing her discomfort and as she gain confidence, it slowly turns colourful to conveys her mood.

Performance wise, the singer would start off by singing on her own, maybe in a studio and then once she gained confidence, she performs in front of an audience, thus her gig.

Group Ideas: Nanci's Idea

Listening to Nanci's pitching idea, I really liked the fact that our genre for music video is completely different as it means that we're open to more variety of ideas and that we can be more flexible before we come up with our final ones.

Nanci's idea involves an indie song with a narrative which starts off with a young boy and a girl playing n dancing on the field which is then later cuts to show their teenage version of the kids dancing in an industrial zone with loads of factories and pollutions- conveys the fact of how the world has changed and how we have destroyed the environment, shows the contrast between the 2 time zone.

Performance wise, it is basically 2 girls sitting and singing in a pickup truck in a countryside. I quite like this idea as it is simple and straight forward. The problem though, however, is that we'll be shooting around November in which it won't have much sunlight due to the change of season, this means that we'll have to work our way around it and maybe construct a scene in the studio in order to pursue her idea.

Research Into British Music Industry

https://www.bpi.co.uk/home/bpi-2015-music-market-report.aspx

BPI- British Phonographic Industry showed a report which gave a lot of valid information about the current operating British music industry. Reports have shown many interesting information in which will be very crucial for our coursework

"2.1 million LPs purchased as vinyl sales climb 64 per cent to 21-year high, while decline in CD slows to 3.9 per cent as format still accounts for two thirds (66 per cent) of all album sales (excluding streams)." - this means that album covers is still a very important factor in the sales of the actual music itself. This proves that our digipack coursework will still be very crucial in the music industry.

"26.8 billion audio streams represent over a fifth (22 per cent) of music consumed in UK – although if streaming through music video sites were to be added, the combined total for streams would top the 50 billion mark (53.7 billion)." - this means that music videos play a huge role in promoting sales of the actual music. 50 billion is an enormous figure which shows how important the music video is in the music industry.

"Adele’s 25 sells 2.5 million copies in UK (and 15 million worldwide) in just six weeks to become 2015’s fastest & biggest seller globally – 11^th year in a row best-selling artist album in UK has come from British act." - shows that consumers still prefer buying physical products such as albums in which suggests that the album cover itself has a big impact on the sales of these music products.

Overall, the BPI report shows how the music industry in the UK is operating, showing a 4% increase in the music consumption since 2014 meaning the industry is very much healthy. In the UK alone, 122 million albums were sold including 2.1 mullion vinyl, showing the trend of vinyls to be a collection. Also, 26.8 billion videos were streamed, meaning that there are a wide range of audiences for the music products in the UK.

Star Image: In This Moment- Scarlet

Here I created a word cloud in which I would expect the artist in the music video to behave and some star image they might carry.

A2 Music Video Groups

Today we chose our group, consisting of Evelyn, me and Nancy. Evelyn is a photography student which will benefit our group a lot as we need to have somebody who can design an outstanding album cover. Nancy takes theatre study meaning that she will be very beneficial in the casting side of the music video, knowing who will look good on the camera as well as how to make the frame looks good in each shots. I take Economics which wouldn't benefit the group that much in terms of actually casting or the making of the digipacks but I do know what the audience and customers would want which will help on how the shots should be projected and how the digipacks will attract the audiences. I really like this group and I do believe that we will work together and achieve an amazing music video together as a group due to a range of skills we have.