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.