Storyboard

Having written a shot list I felt that as music videos are based around the moving image, which communicates meaning, I felt that having my shot list drawn out would help me to visualise what my music video will look like. However, whilst this is an extremely important part of planning, I do think that my understanding of the way the music video looks will not be determined until the editing of the images are put to the song, thus I need to start creating my animatic. Here is my storyboard:

 

 
 

 

 

I think that at the moment the amount of shots in my storyboard is quite good, as whilst I may need more/less I am able to determine a basic idea of what the music video will look like, allowing me to deicde whether I need more or less shots.

Magazine Adverts

This advert uses dark colours and a naturalistic setting to reinforce the folk sub-genre of their music. The separated images of the band members connote a sense of unity, as each image of the band member is in equal size. The rustic styling iconically connotes the bands style, which is further iconically connoted through their similarly styled clothing. The instruments in the advert are symbolic of the indie-folk genre, as the band members are holding guitars & banjos etc. The crinkled styling of the paper and the small white traditional font is also used to connote the theme of a rustic and traditional band, whilst barely detracting the audiences attention away from the main image.




Laura Marling is also an indie artist, however her approach to the magazine advert differs largely to Mumford and Sons. The individuality and uniqueness of this ad can be depicted from the use of simple colours, and with the text in a red and italic font it indexically connotes a sense of romance and love, whereas it could also connote hate and danger. The image appears to focus on nature, having a male almost trapped by the weaving of the plants and leaves, this connotes the theme of the album itself may contain some danger, and possibly reflect on a personal experience Laura may have had with a male herself.

Ellie Goulding's magazine ad uses the cover of the album itself, this causes the audience to instantly recognise the image, in the hope that they receive a large amount of sales. The blackness at the bottom of the ad allows the small text to be quite visible to the audience, however the overpowering image of the artist herself means the majority of the attention is aimed towards the artist. The use of colours such as gold indexically imply the name of the album 'Lights' and iconically connote happiness. The large almost centred text 'Ellie Goulding' in gold iconically connotes stardom and success, used to make the audience believe that the album is worth buying.

Progress

Having done a presentation in lesson on my progress since the beginning of the A2 course, I realised that whilst my work was progressing accordingly, I still had forgotten to research a quite important aspect of music video, the director. I decided to pause my planning for a moment whilst I researched different music video directors, to gain an understanding of the certain styles/methods some directors use.

http://nh7.in/indiecision/2010/02/18/making-the-videos-laura-marling-mumford/
Whilst this post didn't address the more technical aspects of music video, I felt that it allowed me to gain an understanding of the intense planning that goes into making music videos, and the necessity of organisation.

This research taught me that many music video directors often stay within the same genre of song when producing videos, for example Grant Gee particularly focuses on the alternative rock genre, with these being a few of his productions:

Gavin Bryars with Tom Waits - "Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet" (1993)
Spooky - "Stereo" from Stereo EP (1995)
Spooky - "Shunt" from Shunt EP (1996)
Spooky - "Fingerbobs" from Found Sound (1996)
Radiohead - "No Surprises" from OK Computer (1997)[3]
Mansun - "Six" from Six (1999)
Blur - "Tender" from 13 (1999)
The Auteurs - "The Rubettes" from How I Learned to Love the Bootboys (1999)
Jean-Louis Murat - "Jim" from Mustango (1999)
Coldplay - "Shiver" from Parachutes (2000)
Badly Drawn Boy - "Another Pearl" from The Hour of Bewilderbeast (2000)
Mansun - "I Can Only Disappoint U" from Little Kix (2000)
Idlewild - "Roseability" from 100 Broken Windows (2000)
Les Innocents - " Le cygne" from Les Innocents (2000)
Les Innocents - "Une vie moins ordinaire" from Les Innocents (2000)
Les Innocents - "Danny Wilde" from Les Innocents (2000)
Mansun - "Electric Man" from Little Kix (2000)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Gee

Shot List

I expect that my shot list will change throughout the progression of the production, however I feel that having a shot list is an important part of the planning process as it will allow me to gain a few shots to guide me in the right direction, whilst allowing for improvements and changes. At the moment there's roughly 70 shots on the shot list, although I think I may need more as the pace of the song is fairly fast, meaning that the pace of editing will quicken at certain times during the video. Once I have completed the storyboard I'm going to create the animatic fairly promptly so that I can see if the shots will fit accordingly with the pace of the music, allowing for quick changes before I get too heavily involved with filming.

Autumn

As I want my music video to focus on nature and the seasons, I have done some research into aspects of autumn to help me gain more ideas on what to include in the production.
Below are some autumn related images I found to aid my planning:

http://www.mooseyscountrygarden.com/autumn-leaves/autumn-leaves.html


http://www.anthonyreynolds.net/pages/diary.php?page=3&total=98&nombr=10

Conceptual Based Music Video

As a vast amount of music videos follow the narrative style, I felt that it would be more interesting to follow the codes and conventions of a conceptual based music video. As well as this, my favourite indie-folk music videos I found were conceptual:

This video is one of my favourite conceptual based music video as I felt that the shots and editing clearly depicted a theme of freedom, which is suggested in the lyrics.

The video consist of a range of shots of the artist, along with shots of aspects of nature such as grass, sea and the sky, these ELS shots connoted the theme of freedom and the journey that can be experienced. The pace of the editing reflected the pace of the song extremely well, as it would increase during the songs more upbeat sections, and slow down at the beginning where the song was fairly slow.

The song I have chosen is much less upbeat than 'Old Pine' meaning that I would have to approach this style of music video in a slightly different way. I will need to make sure the shots and pace of editing allow the theme of loneliness to be connoted, whilst reflecting the speed of the song. Before having chosen a song I wanted to have the music video in an outdoors setting, focusing on nature; this meant that the genre of indie-folk fitted perfectly to my preferences for the video, as outdoor and nature are part of the codes and conventions for indie-folk genre music videos.

Ideas for a Conceptual Based Music Video

• Character walking through a field - loneliness
• Shots of boots/gloves - connotes autumn/winter season
• Close ups/mid shots of leaves, flowers, animals throughout 
• ELS of an clear road - POV shot to further connote the isolation of the character
• Character sitting/standing/walking on a bridge - various shots/angles 
• Close ups/long shots of stream
• Shots of fire - connotes anger/danger of character 
• Shadows of character
• Possible change to an indoor setting - piano close ups

Having thought of a few ideas for the music video, I need to begin storyboarding to allow the filming of the production to run more smoothly. 

Contextual Aspects of Music Video

The contextual aspects of the indie-folk genre is defined by the clothing, style and themes in the videos. The audiences are often attracted to the genre as a result of having a similar style as the band/artist.



This Mumford & Sons video is more likely to attract the male gender, due to the style of the band members; as the indie genre is becoming much more popular in this day and age, many young adults/teenagers dress in a similar way to those bands which are in the media.



Similarly, Ellie Goulding is also an upcoming artist and a vast amount of her audience chooses to listen/watch her as a result of her style and popular sound. With this is mind, it suggests that audiences are just as attracted to the image of the artist as well as the music itself, implying that to produce a successful music video, clothing and style is an important aspect to consider.