Rough Cut

Costumes

Singer's costume (Michael Moursi);

(For the narrative sequences).

- The singer will wear a long coat, most likely a duffle coat in a passive tone yet not too earthy, something in the blue spectrum, in a darker shade.

- He will also be wearing tight fitting trousers, in a park tone, but not too similar to the shade of his coat, darker. Black skinny jeans for this sequence.

- He will also wear a muted plaid shirt, featuring red and green, adding in colour into the wardrobe without becoming a singular focus for the outfit.

- For his shoes, we will have the singer wear brown leather and suede chukkas, to help complete this indie outfit.

(For the performance sequences).

- The singer will wear a white, or similar low-key colour, t-shirt. It would be a band t-shirt of a band in a similar style to the band. Something like Nirvana or The Ramones.

- He would also wear black, slim/skinny fit trousers in black.

Drummer's costume (Elliott Slingsby)

(For the performance sequence)

- In this sequence the keyboarder will wear a black hooded jumper.

- He will also wear a checked shirt underneath this, featuring red, blue and white, this will again add colour to this wardrobe but we'll play it down by either covering it slightly by the jumper of desaturating the colours.

Guitarist's costume (Luthais Morrison)

(For the performance sequences)

- The guitarist will wear a white T-shirt, possibly with a print on it, but the print must not be too in your face.

- Luthais would wear loose, baggy trousers.

- To complete his look, he will wear brown boots.

Focuses & Ambient Audiences

For this blog post I will be referencing "Can't Stop" by The Red Hot Chili Peppers, which you can see below.


How does the chosen music video appeal to the focus audience:
The focus audience for the Red Hot Chilli Peppers is (approximately) mostly males between the ages of 15 - 25, so anywhere between young teens and young adults. The way they appeal to this audience in the video, is mainly the theme of general silliness, and non-sensical scenes. For example, there's a scene where Anthony Kiedis, the lead singer, is getting empty plastic bottles wedged inbetween his legs and arms by one of the other band members.
The whole theme of silliness appeals to the alt rock audience, because people don't listen to alternative rock for whole hearted meaningful lyrics, but just because it sounds good. So making a video of the band being silly seems more real, and people watching can relate to being quirky and crazy.
To add to the theme, there's a wide array of costumes, that go from a "Tent Suit", to a giant purple dinosaur head. On top of this the video has zero to very little narrative, and literally is just a video consisting of crazy non-linear scenes of the band being zany.

Qualitative Audience Research

While doing audience research we used a quick questionnaire to gain an insight in what audiences expect of our song and it's music video.

To get the best results possible we played the audiences the song and then proceeded to ask them questions from our questionnaire.
The questions we used were:

1. Did you like the track?
2. What type of person would like this track?
3. Which age range would you typically associate with this song?
4. How would you picture the band/lead?
5. What sort of music video would you expect to accompany this track?
6. If performance, where and what type?
7. If narrative, what sort?

Audience #1

1. It was alright but something I wouldn't normally listen to or find.
2. Average teenager/young adult would probably be the type of person I would expect to listen to this track. "Indie" types in particular.
3. 12-20's
4. Black/dark hair, scruffy facial hair, wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Laid back style/attitude.
5. Mainly performance rather than a solid narrative.
6. Small gig e.g. pubs, bars, the junction. Maybe practice sessions like in a garage.
7. A consistent narrative/small, self contained story.

Audience #2

1. Yeah I liked the song.
2. Indie music types. Kings of Leon people.
3. 14-20's
4. Curly/indie hair, skinny jeans and stuff.
5. Narrative based, with a simple story. No performance sequences.
6. Small pub, like the Portland Arms
7. In the narrative, he would be playing a videogame, then the camera would go into the game and the character would be him. Like the "Califonication" video by Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Audience #3

1. Yes. It's the style of music i like to listen to but felt the chorus could have been differentiate from the verse in a better way.
2. People who like Indie, maybe some soft rock style of music. 
3. Probably teens to 30 years. Mostly a male audience.
4. Probably quite casually dressed but still with a particular 'look', such as certain haircuts or style or trainers etc
5. I think there would be elements of performance to show off the bands skills and talent, so that audiences would know what to expect at a gig. Also maybe some shots of the audience. This would be intercut with some narrative elements to reflect the lyrics. 
6. Small venue with a small stage, more of a focus on lighting and instruments rather than grand venues and costume.
7. Narrative would feature a band member as the centre of the storyline. In locations that are relatable to an everyday audience member. 

Audience #4

1. I liked it, it's definitely something I'd listen to.
2. Relaxed people, people who put the music on in the background and chill out. Just lounging about.
3. 16+
4. Laid back attitude. Casually dressed but not in tracksuits or anything similar.
5. Mix of both. Some narrative sequences, but the majority of the video is of the band playing, with the narrative sequences just used to accompany and support the performance sequences.
6. Practice session, in a very small location. Not too cramped but definitely not spacious.
7. Singer walking through town, shots of him singing the lines in the song. 

Audience #5

1. The song was pretty good.
2. Ambient music, played in the background of a house. The people might not buy the whole album but this song is something they'd listen to as they relax.
3. 13+
4. Conservative style. No mohawks, dyed hair or piercings. Just a fairly average guy, with a chilled attitude.
5. Mainly narrative based, focusing mainly on the singer but with performance sequences to add to the video.
6. Small, low-key venue, such as a music based pub or a plain room.
7. Relationships would feature, relationship changes like a falling out, a break up and mood changes. Happy to sad etc.

Audience #6

1. Okay, but not my type of thing.
2. Indie kinda people.
3. 15-19
4. Skinny jeans, converse, t-shirts and fashionable haircuts.
5. Them playing I would say.
6. Small venue, just them playing. No crowds.
7. Just walking about really.

Theoretical Study Into Audience - Uses and Gratifications

Our audience would approach and use our product for the reasons that Blumler and Katz argued, that audiences are active and not passive and will approach and use our music video for the following reasons:

Diversion - our target audiences are teenagers and young adults, these people can be pressured by the everyday stress of college, university, coursework and exams (teenagers) and work in general (young adults) and they could use our music video as a distraction to help them overcome the stress and to help them relax for a while.

Personal Relationships - our target audience could gain companionship with the singer in our music video, the audience may be able to feel like they know what the singer is going through. The narrative could also be a centre for conversation with others about the music video because of the fact that it could be viewed a lot of people included in the target audience and that some points in the video could be a topic for conversation, like the similarity/differentiation of our video compared to others.

Personal Identity - the target audience would most likely be able to compare themselves to the singer in our music video through the narrative that is told in the lyrics and represented through the video. They could see that they need to just go out and have some fun like the singer in the video does which would help them to answer a question on their identity and re-affirm what they should be doing.

Surveillance - this is something that the target audience wouldn't use our video for as we don't supply any information throughout the video and so the audience would only view the video for pleasure and nothing else.

Editing Techniques: Cuts

One vital part of the editing process which can make or break a music video is the number of cuts included in the video. Usually the cuts are made on the beat of the song and can make a music video look very smooth and professional. To get an idea of how many cuts we should perhaps use in our video, we decided to look at a mainstream music video and count how many cuts are in the video altogether.

Watch the video here

PSY - GANGNAM STYLE is a mainstream video at the moment which has gone to number 1 in the UK Chart Top 40 and has gained 480 million views on YouTube in the first 3 months. We counted around 170 cuts in the video but it was hard to count as at 2 parts there was some very fast cuts between alternate shots fitting about 20-30 cuts in the space of 3-4 seconds. This isn't something we would do in our video as there aren't any beats in the song to match this speed. However the overall figure of 170 cuts taking out the very fast cuts means that we ought to aim for around 120 cuts for the video to look smooth and professional like the current mainstream videos do.

Storyboards, Shot Lists, and Call Sheet

Text

This shot list shows what shots we want to utilise in our video and where. This may not be exactly what is shown in our music video but will be approximately similar.

These shots of our storyboard are showing the basic premise and start to our music video. This again is subject to change but the basic premise is going to stay the same.

Here we'll have more shots than shown, stressing the importance the performance of the singer at this time.

This storyboard shows the narrative of video. Again this may not be precisely what is in the finished video but the overarching "story" of the video will be the same.

Here we will have more shots of the band performing, making use of a lot of small, quick shots to have a more up-tempo feel to the performance making it fast paced.

Here is our production sheet, showing some locations we'll be using, contacts for that location and who the director and cameraman are for our project.