Animatic/ story board Planning

Charlotte and Rachel drawing the story board.

Rachel drawing the storyboard.

Gina drawing the storyboard.

Mutemath merchandise

This is a range of Mutemath merchandise including a poster, album, T-shirt and some other things to promote their new CD. This would give use some more ideas how to sell merchandise (if we were actually marketing our video and products.) The main things these product have in common is the image and also the text, from this we are able to see that the image and text is key to being recognisable and successful.

Poll results

Our results for our polls are as followed:

40% of people thought that the second spotlight font is better than the other three, and half the people thought that the forth font was better than the rest. So these are the fonts we will most likely use due to popular demand and that the fonts alos fit in with the genre of music and also the narritve of the song.

Our music video explained Part one.

The story behind our music video is not unheard of but we have tried to make as original as possible. It begains with a streotypical 'Geeky' looking boy in his room. The representation of this character is questionable as the definition of 'Geek' is not a fixed term. Everyboy has there own interpretation of what this term means. So with this in mind we developed a character that to all of us came across as a 'Geek'. We did this via props and costume. for example; in the bedroom we have PacMan posters and a simpsons duvet, with Starwars things dotted around. The geek himself has quite messy hair showing that he doesn't care too much about his apperance, which is part of the narrative itself. He has quite typical clothes, normal looking shirt, but the main part of the costume includes a pair of quite commical glasses.
The Geeks bedroom from our anamatic.

The Geek.

The whole narrative focuses on how the geek is always overlooked by people. more importantly by the girl he likes. The scene where he is walking along the corridor behind her shows how shy he is and that he is embarressed. As the song goes on the character develops through the help of the band members as they are quite 'popular.' Its also quite ironic that the geek actually has a MuteMath poster in his bedroom and they turn up to help him and his self esteme.
The band memebers are represetated as the complete opposite to the geek. They are confident and this comes accross in there costumes and through the narrative. For example the band members hair, is instantly recogniseable as we took examples from everyday people walking in the street, it shows that they take care in their appearance. The clothes they wear include tight 'skinny' jeans and tight tops showing that they like being looked at and they are comfortable about themselves and their well established image. Also their body language reflects that of a confident group of people. Unlike the geek who has a weak and reserved personality showing isolation.
A band Member: the lead singer.

The location featured in our video includes the geeks bedroom mentioned above, the Performance part is being filmed in our school hall with spotlights on the different characters, this is so the audience can focas and be attracted to each character. The target audience may also be attracted as the age we targeted may still be at school, or older people will remember being at school, this helps the audience relate to the characters. The scene with the geek and the girl in it is also set in the school.
The performance part of the video in the school.

Effects and lighting: Due to the low budget we have been quite limited with use of these. However we were thinking of adding some animations if possiable, providing we have enough time during the editing process. These will include some writing moving around the characters head, similar to that included in the People in Planes video 'Pretty Buildings' which is on the blog. The use of the spotlights and the transition between some shots is crucial as it shows the geek being 'transported' to another part of the song. For example when he goes from getting his hair cut by other members to having his room and clothes changed.
The spotlight transition.
Animatic to come!

History of music video

Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. They became popular in the 1980s, when MTV based their format around the medium, and later with the launch of VH1. The term 'music video' first came into popular usage in the early 1980s. Prior to that time, these works were described by various terms including 'filmed insert', 'promotional (promo) film/clip' or 'film clip'. Music videos use a wide range of styles of film making techniques, including animation, live action filming, and non-narrative approaches such as abstract film, which allows artists and bands to do basically anything they want in their music video. Some music videos blend different styles, such as animation and live action, or switch between different narratives, such as performance and a 'story' based ones.

In 1975, the band Queen ordered Bruce Gowers to make a promo video for their new single "Bohemian Rhapsody" to show it in Top Of The Pops; this is also notable for being entirely shot and edited on videotape. It's considered to be a groundbreaking video as it helped establish the visual language of the modern music video. Although critical reaction was initially mixed, especially in the US, "Bohemian Rhapsody" is often considered to be a masterpiece by Queen and one of the greatest rock songs of all time.

To watch the video click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VXc2eZtPN0

The Muppet's also did a take on the song where it involved all/most of the Muppet cast. They kept to the main narrative as in the video which gives it the similarity to the original video, it keeps the black background and the spotlights at the start which mirrors the original video. They even have some performance narrative in it, when 'animal' plays the drums.

To watch the clip click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgbNymZ7vqY

We are referencing parts of the video, epically the start, where the four of them stand in the darkness and the spotlight comes on. Instead of them standing close together we are having them standing apart with them playing their instruments. Also the general darkness of the video and having a performance at the end of our video.

Another reference to our original storyboard is the shopping centre part in our video. This is similar to the Avril Lavigne, 'complicated' video where they are creating mayhem in the shopping Mall. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGXYAJoDWCk

Other videos which follow our sort of narrative is Fall out boy's 'Dance Dance' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6MOKXm8x50) and also Bowling for soup's 'High school never ends' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IRs7e58dsY). These both show a character in the narrative starting as a geek and then turning out to be the protagonist of the video. For example both 'geek heroes' at the end get the girl, or become popular among their peers.

Last day to vote for the poll!

Quick! last day to vote for your favourite band fonts! only 14 hours! :)

People in Planes - Pretty Buildings video analysis

This is the video i analised, it has some similarities with our video. It also uses the spotlight idea (2:50) but in a different context. There is good character development without a strong narrative, there is no performance in this however which is different to ours.

Similar bands - People in Planes, video analaysis

People in Planes – Pretty Buildings. Analaysis
♪ Genre Characteristics: Girl is wearing a typical hoody that will appeal to right aged audience. The colour scheme is dark and gloomy which also appeals to a younger audience. First meet the character who is a girl. Everything looks sad and the character is showing no emotion. Lots of quick and slow panning around the character making her centre of attention. She walks into a bare room, looks like she lives on her own. Quite young, teenager, Costume/ prop she is wearing a school bag on her back.
o Next story he is a man sitting on his own, quite depressing. Same colour dull mustered yellow. He is making something that is obviously quite important to him

♪ Relationship between lyrics and music: The girl at the beginning sits down and shows the camera her drawings of the ‘Pretty buildings’ she starts drawing, quite expressive, the lyrics are “dive into sleep... dream of pretty buildings” as she chucks something on to her bed. She then holds up a visual representation which shows how she is feeling, “ break this silence.” It then slowly zooms into the sign “telegraph your points of view, Sheppard me from silence.” The actual telegraph says “break this silence” “I don’t wanna feel this low again” moves from the sad animation to going through another window which is the start or the next story.
o This story starts with a single man, again sitting on his own completely isolated. Horrible miserable room that doesn’t really show any emotion like the character. “I ain’t gunna steal your flame again” “Let’s talk about it” he picks up a glass of what looks like whiskey meaning that he is really depressed about his life, especially as he is then looking up at maybe his family.
♪ Relationship between music and visuals:
♪ Beginning shot is an establishing shot of buildings in rain while, sombre piano music starts the song, sets the mood and lets the audience know what theme the video will have. Slow pan inwards to show windows. Moves to the quick zoom in, into a dark gloomy corridor. “I don’t wanna feel comes up on the telegraph which is also in the chorus and again explains how she feels. During this part of the song her drawings come alive and the actual building is alive in her picture. This part has black and white animation, that moves to the beat of the music, quite strange sequence, maybe what’s going on in her head? Another picture then comes up of her crying “TALK” comes up in really big writing but this doesn’t seem to help.
o Similar to beginning but this time the camera zooms into the cartoon window of the house again showing a different story, this then zooms into a LS that slowly zooms into a pan round that concentrates on the character. “I don’t wanna feel” you see the characters emotion on his face as he is using the scissors. The background has lots of pictures on it that he then looks at pained as if something is really the matter. It then goes to behind him as if the audience is really there , the ECU of his hands building his model is quite personal, it shows the care that he is putting into his, by the looks of it lives work. The animation then starts again with what looks snow in the background meaning its quite cold and un-feeling shot of him sitting on his own. Maybe his wife/ family left him because she didn’t like what he was building or that he spent all his time doing it instead of family time. It then goes to the rest of the animation which strangely enough cuts to include scissors which the man was using, could it even mean that he is so depressed he is thinking about violent things?
 After this shot it then quickly zooms into another window which again tells another story. This time there are two people maybe in a relationship, but they don’t look very happy. You have the LS showing both characters quite away from eash other, the distance between then could reflect the way they feel about each other. Also the man is stading up which makes him look like he is looking over the women (notion of looking.)
♪ CUs Etc. + image motifs
♪ Notion of looking: The audience feel as if they are looking in on the different characters stories, quite personal as they each have something they are hurting about but they are not telling anyone.
 The shot of the two people you have the notion of looking
♪ Intertextual references
♪ Performance + narrative based – very much narrative based, has each different story of each character, there isn’t any performance as you don’t get to see the actual band at all.
♪ Mise – En – Scene. The use of lighting is quite interesting, it’s very dark apart from one single bright light which shines in what the depressing people find is the most important parts of their lives.
o Costume: First girl is wearing a typical hoody. She is quite pretty but doesn’t look like she cares about that (long hair normal looking.) Second man is wearing simple clothes, a white top and an old red checked top, looks like he also doesn’t really care about his appearance. His hair is flat and quite geeky looking he also wears quite geeky rimmed glasses that are quite old fashioned.

Font ideas for the song title.

Again these are the fonts we have chosen for the song title. They fit the 'spotlight' criteria that features in the song and the video itself. Again there will a poll where you can vote for your favourite font, again numbered 1 to 4 from the top.

MuteMath, Band fonts

These are the fonts that we have chosen for the band. They are slightly geeky which fits in with our video and the band promotion. Please fill out the poll on the right of the blog. Fonts are numbered in order 1 to 4 just vote which one you prefer!

Change of Plans

Due to difficulty we have decided to not to shoot at Queensgate but to shoot it at one of our homes. We will have the 'Geek' put on cloths and pan round him whilst seeing him put on cloths. We will also have to create a make-shift dolly to stick the camera on it. Our lead singer also came back from Australia so that means we don't need to re-shoot the parts we already have.

Poster and Album cover ideas contin.

Our main idea is now to focus mainly on a still with the band from the video or to take a still photo and use it as our album/poster idea. One inspiration is from a previous Mutemath album cover where the bands faces are replaced with an actual spotlight.

They also had a second album cover for this album where they have an outside stage rather than the band. We can tell it's the same album due to the same font they use on both covers. This would be a good still idea as it's not directly taken from the video. If we where to focus on this image we would change how the band stands in the photo and remove the spotlight from their faces and place them somewhere else, e.g. behind the band for instance.

Another main inspiration throughout our project has been Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, as they use many spotlights throughout their music video. They used a still as their main single/album cover which works well as there wasn't any direct narrative in the video. It also works as it's memorable and is instantly recoginesed to be the bohemian rhapsody cover.

Another out there idea is to have a close up image of any type of light with an 'M' in it,like Metric Fantasies in the old type light bulbs surrounded in darkness. Instead of the bulb, use a spotlight instead but have an M on it. Similar to the Batman signal.

Conventions of a Rock music video

The most obvious convention of a rock video is that they tend to be both narrative and performance based. The narrative tends to show a romance between the lead singer and a girl, action based or even some form of current affair. Whereas the performance tends to be just the band with an audience performing to them, or just themselves playing to the camera.
Another main aspect of conventions would be the band logo. This is sometimes shown in a music video so the audience knows who's video it is. It tends to be shown for only a few seconds in the video, but is still Identifiable by the fans of the artist/band. Mise en scene is also a key factor when it comes to the video as props, location and costume have to fit with the narrative and also the genre of the music.
In early rock and the 1960s, bands made many promo films for instance, The Beatles made a 'Hard Day's Night'. Many bands from other genres also made feature films, such as Cliff Richards 'Summer holiday'.

Due to poor weather conditions we where unable to do any filming over Christmas. Due to snow on the last day, we didn't any camera's to film and our lead singer was in Australia. So the plan is to do as much filming asap. We will have to hope that Queensgate will allow us to do filming on another day. We have to find another lead singer and re-shoot the things we already have.