Permission

During today's lesson we were writing a letter to the "Inspected" label to ask for the permission of using KOAN Sound's Trouble in the West in our A2 Music Video. Fortunately Gil works for that company so they were happy for us to use the song. 

Storyboard Animatic - Trouble in the West

On Friday we presented our animatic to James, Luke, Mat and the whole class.  Animatic was a necessary process as this way the whole group has a clear idea of the action sequence and it will just be simpler when the shooting day arrives as you wont need to spend hours planning the location and the shots. It is also a great way to see what elements do/ don't work well and need changing. One of the positive comments we received was the fact that the editing of shots was well incorporated with the music and that the drawings were clear but Luke’s main worry is that our storyline in the video is too narrative and he suggested that some scenes like the delivery should be cut out. This weakness is definitely something that should be taken into consideration and maybe in order for our music video to not be as fictive, we  need to cross-cut the scenes more mixing the cave moments with Mr Fox running for his revenge.The performance in the cave and Mr. Fox’s home will definitely be kept in our final product as it plays a key role in constructing the star image. In terms of target audience, I believe that our images were self-explanatory and drawn very clearly by Bee. It will make more sense once we film it. One of the most useful lessons I learned was how important it is to cut the shots right where the music drops as it will make a difference in a storyline. 

Story Board (Paper)

The Timeline

Music Video Treatment

Emily

This week, we were introduced to Emily, a music video commissioner who works at Polydor Records. She visited our media class in order to explain to us the concept of making treatment for music videos. Her visit was very useful as now my peers and I grasped the whole idea of preparation for music video and how a professional music video is made and advertised. She showed us some examples of music videos she had worked on which included Elle Goulding's "Burn" and James Blake's "Overgrown" which I liked in particular as it was directed by no other than NABIL. One of the most useful things I learnt from Emily was that when using VEVO, one may find more advantages than in YouTUBE network as VEVO promotes its new videos on their website which is a crucial point for an upcoming artist. So now with the stream of this new information, my group and I are really looking foreword to working on our musician's unique and urban style and of course creating the set for the video will be equally exciting.

First Pitch of our Music Video & feedback

Final pitch presentation from hurtwoodhousemedia5

On 12th of September we pitched our idea to James and Luke. One of the main worries that Luke had about the music video was that if the art direction is not organized properly, the video could potentially end up having the unnecessary comical effect so in the future we will have to be careful with that and remember this critique. Another point Luke made is that the animal masks we will be using have to be well-made and also quite original. We have found a shop in Guildford, a town by our school where they sell high quality animal masks so that has been taken care of. In terms of narrative, Luke has suggested we take it further and add sequences of humans digging, in order to get to the foxes underground deejay set. This could potentially make our music video look lively and unique. James also proposed that we use the studio when working on the "party" scenes. That way we will be able to control the cinematography and special effects better. All of those comments were really useful and will be taken into much consideration when making the video.