Technological Skills

This week, I am going to be working on my technological skills, which I will be improving for the coursework; whether it be music video or production work. For example, one of my main flaws which I will be needing for this coursework is my inability to use Photoshop. I will be needing this programme for my production work, as I will be editing photographs taken for my advert and my CD Digipack. Specifically, I will be improving and learning to airbrush photographs to give specific looks. For example, my band will be airbrushed in order to give a professional look to the image; making them appear flawless. My protagonist however, the scarecrow, will be airbrushed in to different ways; one to look evil; so I'll be messing around with the different effects on Photoshop this week to find the many ways of making someone look scary. The other

http://www.associatedcontent.com/video/26163/how_to_make_someone_look_evil_in_photoshop.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IVE6n-28ZY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQI39SJbikM

Creative Tasks

This week I have been creating my animated storyboard for my music video. This includes drawing out a shot to shot plan of what exactly will be happening throughout the music video, which helped me even further with my own understanding of what I wish to happen, the types of shots I will capture, and gave me an understanding of how long the video will take to film. This task helped me develop my creativity skills as it gave me the opportunity to think up a sequence of entropic and unusual ideas to make the video interesting and to engage my target audience. These ideas came from a mixture of two things; what I have already seen and how I wish to see things. For example, during my bus journey to and from college in the morning, I travel past many different sights including fields and smaller villages. This is where my original idea for location came from, as it connotes freedom, which I believe reflects my chosen song What's Going On; as it is the freedom to chose what is going on.

I also travel during the sunrise and return during sunset. Whilst seeing this when travelling, I thought it would be a good idea to use in the music video, as it sets the scene well and also reflects the song theme of confusion, as days can go by without a person understanding a situation etc. completely. After deciding on this idea, I remembered I had already seen this happen in a music video but sped up to save time and interest the audience. This video (Keith Urban's I Told You So; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udBYwtp67wg&feature=related ) is what I will be keeping in mind when filming the beginning and the end of my own video, as it is an example of a successful beginning and end to a music video.

The rest of the ideas for my music video came from a discussion of random ideas from my partner. For example, when first hearing the chosen song, synaesthesia helped me think of a desert style location. However, due to the country we live in and the lack of deserts here, the idea of a corn field sprung up. However, due to the time of the year we will be filming this location was not possible. Instead, me and my partner settled for a long grassed field, which gives off the same look as the cornfield would have done. With the theme of confusion and entropy in mind, we started thinking of ways to attract our target audience for the video, and came up with the scarecrow idea. We believe this reflects the song and interests the audience at the same time.

To continue with the creative week, I will be using these ideas to get some photographs for my print production work over the weekend.

Sir Ken Robinson however, once stated that less and less people are creative as people are becoming scared to make mistakes. He claimed that creativity is the process of not being scared to try new things and make mistakes. To some extent I agree with this idea, because if you are not going to take the chance, there is very little you can do without it becoming redundant and boring.

Music Video Genre - Performance

After analysing many music videos, I have realised that nearly all modern music videos can typically be placed in to one (or possibly more) of the same genres. For example, a performance by the artist is typically seen within the music video, whether it be live or in front of a green sheet and then edited. Some music videos contain only artist performances whereas others contain performances at a certain point within the video, for example the end. Stone Sour's 'Made Of Scars' is an example of a music video consisting of a performance throughout;

[[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tmxCRRmNhM&ob=av2e ]]

A more unusual example of this is Stone Sours' 'Say You'll Haunt Me'. This music video is high in entropic features as we do not see the band performance, but a ghostly version of the performance, as they are played in front of each band member. This emphasises the redundancy of the performance genre throughout modern music videos. I will bear this in mind when producing my own music video, as it is clearly a common way of producing a successful music video.

Pitch Feedback

Me and my partner pitched our idea to a group of people in the same age group as our target audience to see whether they believe our concept and idea would attract this audience. The feedback we got was surprisingly positive which made us believe we were addressing the correct audience.

The majority of the feedback emphasised this as our group claimed the target audience we were hoping to address was suitable for the genre we are using for the video. They also said our concept for the music video would address this audience well which I was happy about, as we got feedback saying it reminded them of Green Day and You Me At Six, which was the same target audience we were hoping to attract, suggesting we were aiming at the correct audience. One criticism we did get however, claimed that we were using very mainstream bands for our influences despite our song being indie. However, the ideas of the music video were collaborative of mainstream bands, such as Green Day's 'Wake Me Up When September Ends' and Nickelback's 'Photograph', but also less known mainstream artists such as Keith Urban's 'I Told You So' and 'Somebody Like You', which I believe all target the same audience despite the different genres.

Because our genre is indie, when planning the ideas for the music video, we wished to make it slightly entropic in order to attract our audience and make it stand out against other videos within the same genre. This is where the scarecrow protagonist came from. The feedback we received from our pitch suggested they 'liked the idea of the scarecrow coming to life'- which I believe will give the music video an entropic feel. Within our feedback one person claimed the idea was not very original because the ideas and concepts came from mainstream bands such as Green Day. However, it is only the locations which came from these bands, and even then they have been altered and changed due to the season which we will be filming, not the ideas.

The rest of the feedback suggested they believed the idea of the music video is exciting but also achievable, for example, one person said "REALLY like the song, I'm excited to see it", and another person claimed "I like the song and I think it will work well within the ideas they have."

One person however brought up the interesting question as to whether the idea will be serious or comedic. Me and my partner discussed this and due to the difference in humour between individuals, we're going to keep it a fun-serious type of video, as if the humour differs between each person, some individuals may dislike the video completely. Despite not focussing on the comedic side of the video, we will include some comedic gestures throughout the video, to add entropy and to keep the audience entertained.

Genre & Music Video

In order to produce a successful music video, it needs to be easy to recognise and categorise in to a particular genre. In order to do this,





attract correct audience.