Audience Research Survey

To find out more about the assumed target audience and to get more information on what's expected from my music video, I created an audience research survey to find out what the general audience would like. I sent it out on social media platforms such as Twitter to ensure I get answers from a range of different people, as well as sending it out to friends and family.

Treatment Sheet

Before the construction of my music video, I had to bring all of my ideas together to begin to plan it. To do this, I created a treatment sheet:

 

Initial Ideas

Initial Lyric Breakdown

Before fully deciding the content and themes of my music video, I broke down the lyrics to This Lonely Morning to look at the timings of lyrics so that I can consider certain shots. I also looked into the meaning of some of the lyrics to create ideas about what the video could visualise.
It's not a very long song at 2:42 minutes but I believe I can still make a good music video within this time.

Digipak Analysis

Song Choice

My chosen song is Hurricane by Halsey. An upcoming artist, Halsey's music is best broadly described as alternative or possibly dream pop and has been compared to artists such as Lorde and Lana Del Rey. Released in 2014 from the Room 93 EP, Hurricane is a fresh song. It has an aura of contemporary modernity which is broadcast through how it sounds almost delirious - a term that could be used to describe the youth of this generation through intoxication. That being said, the track also presents ideas of psychedelia through the echoed vocals and mentioning of drugs. At a time of 3:42, I believe Hurricane gives me the resources to create a successful music video using ideas of independence and youth which explodes through the lyrics.

Request for Permission

Before the planning and construction of my music video to ‘This Lonely Morning’ by Best Coast, I have to request permission from the copyright owner of this track to be sure that I can use it. This particular song comes from their EP Fade Away, released on singer Bethany Cosentino’s label Jewel City in partnership with Kobalt Label Services, a provider that allows artists and/or right owners to retain ownership of their work in return for a share of the revenues.

To request permission, I emailed Kobalt Label Services/Kobalt Music Group as there was no contact information for Jewel City alone, and I sent a tweet to Bethany Cosentino as the label owner and musician.

Email Permission Request



Permission tweet to Bethany Cosentino

Song ideas research

For this task, I looked into musicians I listen to and thought about songs that I could use when making my music video. I used 8tracks to put together a mix of 10 songs that I could use for my music video project. I think this will help me with the decision of which song to use because hearing a range of different songs by divergent artists can create different images in my mind to help with the visuals. Whilst they arguably all fall under the indie genre, each song is very different to the next. The only consistent factor is that all of the tracks feature a female singer. I decided using a female vocalist would be the best decision because I feel that it opens up the music video production to many possibilities.

Each song has something different that I think would make it a good choice for the song to base my music video on. I think each with the lyrics and different sounds holds numerous possibilities for creative concepts when creating the music video. Also, many of these would work really well for thought beats.

competence from sianolivia on 8tracks Radio.

Tracklisting for the playlist

Digipak Analysis

Detailed Music Video Analysis

Album Artwork Moodboard

In preparation for creating my digipak, I decided to look at existing album covers by musicians whose sound fits the genres I am focusing on. The differences in them all are important because I think this gives me a wider option of how to design the cover for my album when it comes to it. It'll be very important to the overall task because covers are sometimes used in a person's sole decision to listen to the music or to ignore it. Essentially, the cover can define a musician or an album. Here, I have chosen 12 album covers by different musicians to look at. Each musician falls under the same general umbrella term of a music genre but each sounds very different and in turn will tend to have different types of people as their fans, so each has its differences to the next.

MGMT - Oracular Spectacular | Kodaline - In a Perfect World | Modest Mouse - The Moon & Antarctica
The National - Trouble Will Find Me | Bon Iver, Bon Iver - Bon Iver | Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
Iron & Wine - Such Great Heights | Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul | First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar
Peace - In Love | Death Cab For Cutie - Plans | The Paper Kites - States

What first stands out to me is that 3/4 of these covers (and the majority for all existing album covers by artists like this) don't feature the musician on the cover. This contrasts completely album artwork for music released by pop artists - usually a musician of that genre will have their face plastered on every piece of artwork that's made to accompany their music releases. This is part of the 'star' image element in music. I feel that musicians in the indie music side of the industry are more likely to have their artwork reflect something in the music or mean something to them rather than having their face on it. This is because for them, it's more just about the release of their music than obtaining an identity as a musician.

One of the albums in this selection that does feature the faces of the musicians is MGMT's Oracular Spectacular. I think this reflects the success they had in 2008; their songs 'Kids' and 'Time to Pretend' were hugely popular at the time this album was released. Also, the music video for 'Time to Pretend' is greatly linked to that of the whole album digipak as they're shown with the same appearance. This would make them interchangeable when it came to linking one with the other as most people will have seen either the video or the album in a shop somewhere. This is a great use of promotional integration. I don't think displaying the album name on this artwork was important because it was as if they're selling the artist by throwing the name of the band at the audience. The colours and costumes are also quite vivid so it would certainly catch someone's eye. 

Another thing I find significant is that all bar two album artworks in this group feature the artist's name on the cover. The National are almost hiding their name and the album title in the top right hand corner as this artwork is very focused on the image, but it's still there. Two albums here that don't show the musician's name: they are the albums by Oasis and Bon Iver. However, versions of 'Dig Out Your Soul' exist with the Oasis logo stuck on the left hand side. The digipak for 'Bon Iver, Bon Iver' and every single released from the album features landscape art by Gregory Euclide, a contemporary artist. This was a collaboration between the artist and the sole voice of Bon Iver, singer Justin Vernon. It's all based on one of the concepts of the album, namely transformation. Concept is important because a sole idea can help a musician or an artist create something whole around it. While it may not mean anything to someone who isn't a fan of the band, the artwork will be understood by fans from a previous time or by anyone who can listen to a few sound waves and suddenly understand what it means. Making the album artwork reflect the album is like adding another piece of meaning to it. Furthermore, Bon Iver was popular prior to the release of this meaning that a fanbase had already been established, therefore people will have known about the cover before the actual release. 

Generally, the words and fonts used on the covers is minimal. Kodaline have their name appear bigger than the album title, whereas Death Cab For Cutie does the reverse and Peace have both their name and the album title the same size. Some have dignified logos but generally the musician's name is in a simple font. This means they don't necessarily stand out but they are still there and make themselves known. 

9 Frame Analysis

Magazine Advertisement Analysis

Shot Count/Key Media Concepts Analysis

I counted 85 shots in this music video. This may not be exact but it is very, very close to the real number if that is the case. This tells me I should aim for around this many shots in my own music video. However, I will more than likely use more camera styles than the one used in this video.
For the shot count task, I chose the music video for Trampoline by We The Wild. The video was directed by Mike Lee Thomas, and edited by Mike Lee Thomas and Amy Daneel respectively.
The majority (first 2:25 minutes) of the video is focused on dancer Shafira Tonkmor. The camera styles are primarily the same: different shots of Tonkmor as she dances, mostly medium and long shots. The musicians are later shown around two and a half minutes into the video lip syncing the lyrics to the song. The shots again are very similar to that of the rest of the video, medium shots focused on the faces of the band. This video doesn't really focus on the star image but it is made very clear that they are the musicians. The costumes are very basis; the three people in the video are dressed casually, as a person would dress on a day-to-day basis. This again doesn't really comply with the star image.
The dancer of whom the video focuses on seems to be fighting something around her - her dancing is as if she's battling an invisible force. This with the lyrics seems to suggest she could be in her own world, or that dancing is like an escape for how she is feeling:

• Gravity, gravity it's pulling me
• You're falling from, falling from the hard ropes
• And I can't breathe

Trampoline's music video is very simplistic, yet it still almost tells a story. I think this is an important thing to remember for when I create my own music video.

What is Genre?

Genre is the particular style in which content such as music, literature, and films are categorised as. Whilst literature and film genres are mostly somewhat straightforward, music is ambiguous in the sense that next to no musical acts can be defined as one particular genre.This is because within music there are many different genres with countless sub-genres alongside them. It's also this way because of the many conventions a music artist will include in their art. 
Genre is an important concept to consider when creating a music video. The video will need to reflect the genre of music the artist is, or on the other hand will need to completely contradict it if the video is made to be ironic and challenging the conventions of what some would imagine the music video to be. Many artists do both of these things and in turn produce very creative music videos. When picking my song and planning the production of the video, I will keep this in mind.
I created a mind map of musical genres to show the vast variety of genres we see in the music world. I tried to gather as many genres and sub-genres that I could think of and put them into groups of music genres we see related to one another. I separated indie from rock entirely because I will be focusing on these genres in my coursework. As you can see in my mind map, the genres I will be considering are as follows: 

• Acoustic, alternative, ambient, baroque pop, dream pop, folk, garage, grunge, indie pop, indie rock, indietronica, lo-fi, lounge, neo-psychedelia, noise rock, psychedelia, shoegaze, surf, synthpop

Inspirational/Creative Music Videos

These are the music videos that I'll be using as inspiration for my own video. I think each is creative in its own way and hope to use aspects of some of them in my own video in order to make it fit the genre of my choosing.

Follow Sian's board Inspirational/Creative Music Videos on Pinterest.