Costumes:

For this video costumes will play a huge part, and we needed to find a really good suplier. We want everything to look authentic so that it doesn't just look like a fancydress party. the costumes need to be instantly recognisable by the audience so they which character is which. We have taken inspiration for the costumes from the "Fallen Princesses" photography. We want the characters to not look too perfect and slightly desheviled so will with smudge makeup and mess up hair to create this look. Unfortunately we arn't allowed to rip and dirty the costumes as we are hiring them. We have found some suitable costumes hires locally which stock the costumes we need. The rest we can probably source from the Hurtwood Costume department.

http://www.fairygodmother.co.uk/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=85_87


http://www.thedressingupshop.com/index.php?id=3


http://www.thejokeshop.co.uk/entered.php

Location:

Originally we wanted to shoot everything inside "Leith Hill" which is a National Trust own empty house as it would be the perfect backdrop. But we soon ran into problems as we would have to book the venue and there is no furniture and everything would have to be brought in (which would be very complicated). So we decided to shoot everything at Courtney's house as it's a very big house with a spiral staircase which was perfect! Aswell as multiple bedrooms to choose from and approprate furniture for the video. We can also dress up the house and make it appear very theatrical and atmospheric. We have total control over the location which makes it perfect to shoot in.

Asking for Copyright Permission:

To:  VAGRANT RECORDS

We are a group of A Level students working on an A Level project for a qualification in Media Studies. We are writing to request permission to use the following track as part of this project:
EELS - FLYSWATTER

With your permission the track would be used as the accompaniment to a short form video that is made purely for assessment purposes and will have no commercial usage. The video will be viewed only by members of the school community and the assessor of the examination board.


The artist and the copyright holder will of course be fully recognised in the pre-production and evaluation material that accompanies the project. We can also include a full copyright notice if required both in the planning material and on the video itself.


Yours sincerely

 SABRINA SALMON, COURTNEY MADINCEA AND SARAH WICHALL
Hurtwood House School

Album cover:

The album cover for our band really needs to reflect the image of the band and their style, so audiences immediately know what kind of music they are. The image of our band is alternative indie, so i researched the album covers of similar bands for inspiration, such as "Panic at the Disco" and "My Chemical Romance" who both have quirky off beat album covers that attract their target audience. Our cover needs to be captivating and eye catching to engage our audiences and make them pick up the CD!

Institutional Context

Our band (not yet named) draws paralells to Panic! At The Disco so I looked up what record label they were signed to and saw to my satasfaction that they are signed with an independent pop record label.

Fueled By Ramen

Fueled By Ramen was started as a label by Less Than Jake guitarist Vinnie Fiorello and John Janick in 1996. The label is a key player in the development of Punk Pop and released early recordings by Fall Out Boy, Jimmy Eat World and Yellowcard. Among the key artists currently on the label are:

- Panic! At The Disco
- Less Than Jake


Very non-mainstream record label that originates from New York City and is a subsiduary of Warner Music Group.

www.fueledbyramen.com

Feedback

You have made a good attempt to catch up on the work missing from last week, but once again there are gaps remaining in your blog from this week's work - institutional context and the research into album artwork.  The timeline is competent and will form the basis of your work on storyboarding but it is vital that you are putting in some hours outside of class to keep your research and planning portfolio as complete as possible.

James

Timeline of Video

Pre - Roll:

Little girl skipping down a path towards house, humming chorus of "Flyswatter" - with a box of cookies in her hands. Comes to the door -
Girl - "Knock knock" (Mad Hatter opens the door) "Excuse me sir, would you like to buy some cookies?"
M.H - " Why some cookies would be wonderful! I'm having a tea party, won't you come in?"

00.02 - Mad Hatter puts his hand out
00.07 - Girl takes hand and walks into dark house (Door closes behinds her)
00.09 - Lights come on!
00.09 - 00.17 - tracking shot of overall of choas
00.17 - 00.21 - Cards falling from the ceiling, pigs running through ect.
21.00 - 00.25 - Pushed into tv lounge
00.25 - M.H singing
00.30 - sleeping beauty passed out of couch
00.33 - princesses fighting over tiara
00.40 - band preforming in bare room
00.45 - close up of mad hatter singing
00.53 - girl runs up stairs
00.57 - walking through dark creepy hallway
1:00 - Girl walks into bedroom and see little red riding hood and wolf in bed
1:04 - Red riding hood and wolf sit suddenly on the gutair riff
1:05 - Girl covers her eyes and runs away to bathroom and slams door
1:08 - turns around to see Captain hook in the bath playing with toy boats
1:16 - Girl runs out and down stairs
1:20 - Close ups on band preforming
1:32 - Girl wanders into tea party
1:43 - M.H stands on table singing
1:50 - March hare pours the tea and she drinks
2:00 - shots of characters around the room
2:04 - Girl eats a piece of cake with a toothpick that says "Eat me" on it
2:09 - 2:20 - Flashbacks of all the characters around the house
2:24 - Girls faints and lands in the cake
2:32 - Girls is shown under a tree clutching a book of fairytales and covered in cookie crumbs
2:42 - Girl wakes up confused
2:50 - Bunny hops past her
2:55 - Girl skips away...
Track ends - 3:03


This is only a possible ending as there are many other options we could have and we have not decided yet.

Research into Artist

Eels is an American indie rock band, from Los Feliz, California, formed by singer/songwriter Mark Oliver Everett, better known as E. Other members rotate frequently, both in the studio and on stage. They've 9 albums since 1996, their latest album Tomorrow Morning was released in 2010. They are signed to DreamWorks, Vagrant  and EWorks.

Target Audience

• Both Male and Female
• Dresses in alternative/indie clothes
• Age - Teenage up to early twenties
• Lives in Europe or US
• Not really into sports
• Goes to festivals and live performers
• Race - White and Black
• Middle Class
• Despises commercial music
• Has a couple of tattoos

Inspiration

We were inspired by a photographer 'Dina Goldstein' from Vancouver, who did photos with a modern interpretation of classic fairytale princesses. This has provided us with lots of inspiration as we want to create a similar theme in our video. We also love the costumes used, and want to recreate them.


Snow White


Little Red Riding Hood - Not so little anymore!


Ariel


Sleeping Beauty


Jasmine

Planning Music Video

As a group we've chosen to use the track Flyswatter by Eels. Our idea is to to a 'Tim Burton' inspired music video. Combining a circus/carnival feel with a haunted mansion involving a little girl like 'Alice in Wonderland'. We really feel that this idea would suit the mood of the song and portray our band with a cool, alternative image.

Possible treatment for Video:

There will deffinetly be a small pre roll at the beginning to set up the narrative. A little girl, possibly 'Girl Scout' goes to an old abandoned house in the middle of no where, to sell cookies. The Mad hatter opens the door and invites her inside, the music thens begins. The house is full of fairytale characters such as Cinderella, Pinocchio, Peter Pan, Prince Charming etc. And this house is where they all live when they are not fulfilling their fairy tales. The little girl explores the house in Amazement. We want the house to have a creepy yet humourous vibe to it. For example, two princesses are fighting over a tiara and Captain Hook is in the bath playing with little toy boats. There will also be a mad hatter tea party happening in the dining room which soon turns into a food fight!

A have a few possible endings to the video.... The girl could get scared all of a sudden and just run out of the house screaming. Or she could eat a poisonous apple and die.

Through out the video the band members will be playing around the house and the mad hatter is the lead singer.

Feedback

This is disappointing, Sabrina, as there is very little evidence of any time invested in the planning process or the blog outside of the class this week.  My brief asked for your initial ideas to be posted, along with a detailed account of the idea chosen and detailed research into similar artists.  You have not really addressed this and will need to spend some time strengthening this material before you can move on to the timeline.  In addition, you have not yet posted your demographic and psychographic audience profile.

James

Our Ideas for the Music Video:

We are now discussing possible ideas for own Music Video. The members in my group consist of Me, Courtney and Sarah. I think we will work together as we all have similar visions and goal for the video.
As a group we have found 2 possible tracks we could create a video for.
These are:
Eels - Flyswater
Band Perry - If i die young

They are both quite similar although Band Perry is slightly more counrty sounding. We know we want to create a really creative video which involves a strong narrartive and pre roll.

Evaluation of Preliminary Music Video

Before teh day of shooting the music video I wanted to make sure that our group was well prepared, so we would look professional. We drew up a timeline for our part of the song describing each shot, in the order of shooting. When deciding what shots we should use we did a bit of research of other similar alternative bands and there music videos. For example, Panic at the Disco who used alot of close up shots of their lips. Aswell well as panning and tracking shots. We tried to incorporate these shots in. Our aim was to portray and showcase them in the best way possible.

When It was our turn for shooting our group set up the camera efficiently and had playback ready to go. We worked well, finding inspiration for differnet shots whilst actually in the enviorment of the set. But I'm really glad we had the timeline as a basis to start from. The band were really cooperative and helped us with shot ideas to create something really creative. We all swaped roles as director, camera man, and sound technician. This gave us the opportunity to experience all the roles and each of us got the chance to be a leader. My favourite role was director as I able to easily voice my ideas and opinions. My least favourite job was the sound technician as it was a fairly boring job after you pushed the play button!

Overall I really enjoyed the whole experience of working on the set with a real life band. I now feel pretty prepared for this years work.

Feedback

Some useful material here, Sabrina, though a couple of posts from last term still missing - the most important of these is the evaluation of your prelim music video task, so try to get that done by the deadline this Friday.

Don't forget to post your initial ideas and the research you have done this week as well.

James

Music Video Analysis

I chose this video as it had a lot of interesting aspects to analysis and also a great narrative through out.

POWERPOINT TO COME

Research into Performance and Shooting

 We really wanted to get close ups of the instruments

such as the guitar to emphasis the importance of their 

music and musicianship. It shows that the band members

 can really play their instruments. 

Here is another shot of a musician and his instruments, although not quite so close up, again to emphasis his musicianship and to pull focus from the singer. As too many shots of the singer only can get boring. 

This is a wide shot of the band showing them all together as one, making them look united and like a team. It also allows us to see the set more clearly and show it off. We felt this shot best showed their image as being a quirky, niche band as we can see their alternative clothing and quirky set design.

Initial ideas/treatment for music video

Today i got into a group with Courtney and Sarah. Courtney had already researched possible songs to use and we all agreed on a song called "Flyswatter" by Eels, a very unknown alternative band. The song sort of has a creepy, eerie sound to it so we have ideas of setting the video in a haunted house, and possibly in a abandoned carnival. We also like the idea using a "Alice and wonderland" quality, by having a little girl fall asleep and dream that she gets lost in this scary carnival. We feel that having a narrative to the video will make it more appealing to our targeted audiences. Although we are still unsure of who to cast at this point. We want to portray the bands image as being sort of Indie/alternative and artsy.

Advanced Portfolio

The Advanced Portfolio will involve producing a main artefact, two ancillary artefacts and an accompanying blog containing your research, planning and evaluation materials. We will be working as a small independent production company to produce a music video. This also includes producing a promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, and either a cover fir its release on DVD or a magazine advertisement for the DVD.

Album Cover

For the Album Cover of Jane Doe and the Undesirables we wanted to convey their retro 1950's image. So we chose this photo of them dressed in 1950's costume and then played with photoshop to make the image more interesting. Because the girl in the middle is the lead singer we wanted to make her stand out, so we left her in color whilst her backing singers are in black and white. The black and white also helped to create a retro look. Although we left the backing singer lips red for a cute girlie look.

Preliminary Task Jane Doe and the Undersirables