Research and Planning: Poster

What is a Poster?

For part of our coursework, we have to create a music poster, which advertises our artist's debut album effectively, keeping in with the conventions of a poster.

Conventions of a music poster:

• General colour scheme 
• One main image 
• Image should represent album/artist 
• Similar theme to album 

For the poster, we decided to shoot pictures when filming as we'll be able to have a similar theme throughout, which will fit the conventions and help the consumers and our target audience find the correlation between our ancillary texts. We thought of using a naturalistic shot so that it would work well with the nature theme for our digipak, as well as referencing the music video.

Gorillaz - Plastic Beach

In this promotional poster for band Gorillaz, it features one main picture - the location and inspiration for the album title. The text then appears over the top and features hardly any information. It simply states the band's name, album name, the release date for the album, the artist's website and finally the record label. The dark tone sets the theme of the album and music genre, Alternative Rock.

One element I really like from this poster is the font used for the title and the way it has the wave motion which reflects the sea underneath. This is something I'd like to incorporate into our poster as it would link nicely to our nature theme.

Ariana Grande - My Everything 

This album poster, likewise to the Gorillaz, has one main image of the artist this time. The colour scheme is kept black and white, with only the album title in a soft pink which alludes to the Bubblegum Pop genre of the album. This poster has more information with several collaborative artists being listed, which is a technique used to encourage consumers to buy the album as they'll hopefully recognise some of the featuring artists. This poster also has the release date, a website and the label logo on the bottom.

The key things that stand out besides the artist who is placed in the direct centre, is the title of the artist and album and the release date; as clearly they are the most important. However, the extensive list of featuring artists draws and captivates attention and so this is possibly something we might consider including in our album so that our artist can get a wider range of marketing and promotion.

Research and Planning: Mise-en-scene - Prop and Costume Research

Mise-en-scene: Prop and Costume Research

Keeping in with our artist style mood board we wanted to go for a casual look for our music video as it reflects the feel and message of the song. We didn't want to use props as we felt it was unnecessary and wouldn't fit in with our concept.

Again with costumes, we felt that both Charlotte and Lia have a similar sense of style which represents the look we're going for in our music video.

EDIT

Now having filmed, we feel that Lia's Camden outfit fit the artist style mood board that we created earlier on.

It features the use of a denim jacket and noticeable sports wear brands such as Nike, which help make the outfit anonymous. The colour scheme is mainly soft pastels which fits well with the colour palette of Camber Sands and matches with the sea.

Adding touches of base metals such as rose gold jewellery helped these items sound out against the soft muted colours in the music video.

When we filmed in Camden Lock the second time, Lia went for a casual urban style which fit the location.

Wearing a large, bright green Nike branded hoodie would allow myself as an artist to be noticed and help make our music video stand out. It also fit in well with the bright colours of our location and the bright themes we aimed to include throughout.

Wearing an Adidas beanie did conflict as Lia was wearing two well known, popular and hugely successful sporting brands. However, this would only draw more attention to our artist and their choice in style.

This chosen outfit was worn during our Margate filming shoot. Adding a touch of femininity to all the previous looks we has decided upon, this stood out and soon became one of my favourite looks.

Still keeping with the brands theme, Lia wore a vintage Nike cap and an Adidas top. We felt that it could become a running joke for our artist, a way for her fanbase to identify her, by consistently mixing popular brands. Wearing an oversized jean jacket added masculinity back into the outfit, along with the black lace up boots which helped us stick to the anonymous style we wanted to achieve.

Research and Planning: Production Schedule (Initial)

We plan to film for the length of just over one week. Starting from Thursday 22nd October to Friday 30th October we intend to film our music video as well as take still images to use in our digipak and poster.

Monday 26th October: Planning preparation

Tuesday 27th October: Train/Camden/Tube station filming

Wednesday 28th October: Digipak/Poster photoshoot

Thursday 29th October: Camber Sands

Friday 30th October: Extra filming

Filming the entire music video will be myself, whilst Lia will be the artist. To add context and a wider, diverse range of demographic we decided to choose Charlotte from the auditions to also feature in our music video; whilst she won't be lip syncing, she'll make the music video more visually interesting to watch. This is something that is done in many music videos, such as Dumbfoundead - BKFAM; the music video feature various people in the background who don't lip sync but add an extra dynamic element to the music video.

We'll be using a camera and a tripod to film our music video. The camera is able to take both high quality photos and shoot video, so we'll be able to film and take pictures at the same time if we need to. Using a tripod will allow us to film both high angle and low angle shots which will make our music video more dynamically interesting for the audience to watch. As we're creating a conceptual music video, it focuses more on the aesthetic feeling of the music video and the visuals which includes the variety of camera shots and angles.

We aim to film the entire music video during this week so that we can focus on editing. Once we've finished filming we can review our content and once we edit it together, we can decide if we need to film any reshoots.

Research and Planning: Location Mood Board

We created this mood board which shows the various locations we intend to film in; Camber Sands, Camden and in London Underground tube stations.
Despite not having a narrative, we wanted to film in contrasting locations so we chose to film in the urban location of Camden Town which has a lot of bright, colourful murals, lakes and markets. This location is full of people and is quite a busy place.
Camber Sands is the complete opposite being a quiet, isolated beach which would give the video a complete different feel. The music genre and concept that we are going for best suits this location, however after looking at similar music videos we realised that most music videos don't film in just one location they have several.
Whilst the music video is conceptual, we didn't want to jump from one location to another; so we thought it'd be best to film in London Underground as it could be used to transition between locations fluidly. The only downfall to filming here is that we won't know the conditions of the setting until we arrive, it could be extremely busy which would make filming impossible or it could be empty which would be ideal.

Research and Planning: Music Video Inspiration Moodboard

Music Video Moodboard

After gathering more of an idea of what we wanted to include in our music video, we created more detailed mood boards.

We created this mood board to highlight some of our inspirations for our music video. We aim to make something aesthetically similar to this.
Filming on location means you can never be sure of what is going to happen in terms of weather and setting; so some of the inspiration reflects this. As we're going for an aesthetically pleasing music video, a lot of the shots we aim to capture will be ones of the scenery and the location hence some of the outside pictures where the location is largely seen.

We aim to capture the protagonist(s) doing mundane things whilst creating good cinematography which fits in the style of the music video. There isn't much of a narrative storyline to the music video and so this gives us more of a chance to use a variety of shots, editing techniques and special effects.
Having a running theme such as pastel could be beneficial, but rather than aim to have a theme and once we film not be able to achieve it; keeping it as inspiration is best, as it's something we can perhaps incorporate but don't have to stick to it.
Clothing is important as they often match the music video and location; which is something we'll have to take into account now we've decided a location. In all of these music videos, the fashion style matches and helps fit the aesthetic of the overall video, which is something we aim for.

Research and Planning: Target Audience Analysis and Conclusions

Our target audience ages range between mid teens to late twenties, as we feel people of this age will identify most to the style of music that The Internet create; therefore they'll also identify with our artist and the music we hope to produce.

It's important we gain an understanding of their opinions and what they think so that we know what areas to focus on when creating our music video and ancillary text.

These are our question:

How old are you?
What genre of music do you listen to?
Do you know the group, The Internet?
What do you prefer to see in music videos?
Which of The Internet's music videos do you prefer?
Do you know what a digipak is?
Would you buy a digipak?
What would you prefer to see on the cover of a digipak, poster and newspaper advert?
What do you enjoy most about music videos?
What do you dislike the most about music videos?

(Here is the link to our survey:

Questionnaire)

Target Audience Analysis

1. In response to question one, the majority of our responses fell into the 17-18 age category; which meant we were targeting an audience of young adults. This works well with the artist and song we chose as their music is targeted at this age demographic. We wanted to target people who are at the transitional age of further education and higher education; people who perhaps feel like that lack control in their lives at the moment. We wanted Under Control to comfort them and give our target audience something to relate to.

2. Giving our audience an option of three genres, Electronica, Neo Soul and Trip Hop, all of which are genres of music that The Internet produce help us realise what genres our audience are aware of and will most likely buy into. By having this information, this will allow us to focus on a certain genre of music and will help us create content that appeals to our target audience. 57% of people stated they listened to Electronica, which means that they'll have previous knowledge of this music genre and therefore relate better to our music video.

3. 75% of our target audience hadn't heard of The Internet, which would allow Lia and I to challenge conventions by producing music that not many people have heard of. This would allow us to expose audiences to a wider variety of music and help break down conventions between different genres of music.

4. When given the option of Narrative, Concept, or metaphorical meanings; 34% of our target audience said they preferred a narrative storyline, whilst 42% said they enjoyed conceptual music videos. We decided to go with a conceptual storyline after many discussions as we felt that we could produce a better music video and that this theme fit the song of Under Controlmuch better than a narrative. It also allows us as creators to have much more freedom when creating our music video as we'll be able to decide a theme and base our music video around that.

5. We decided to ask our target audience which music video of the The Internet that they preferred, as it would allow us to see if our audience unknowingly preferred a different style of music video compared to the one they initially stated. 50% of our audience preferred theCocaine music video by The Internet, which is a narrative music video; however we took inspiration from the bright lights seen during the music video and decided to have lights as a running theme throughout our music video; so that this way we're still able to make a conceptual music video, but take on feedback from our audience. When asking for responses, one person stated that they enjoyed Dontcha: 'It is the most enjoyable to watch, and the running black and white aesthetic is also very appealing. It would be very recognisable.' This is something that perhaps Lia and I will try to incorporate into our music video as it seems to resonate with our target audience. Someone else commented, 'I like the race and sexuality representation' seen in the Cocaine music video. This is something we're very keen on, showing representation through our artist and being able to create an artist that is accessible to a larger audience. We hope to this by casting myself as a person of colour as the artist, but also holding auditions to cast someone else to show further representations and also reflecting a gender neutral fashion style at times with small elements of both feminine and masculine styling choices.

6. In the modern world of this music industry, the people we are going for now, specifically our target audience is unsure what a target audience is. This is fine, but in some ways, in creating a digipak it feels like we are going against forms and conventions, as we make a digipak considering that 88% of our target audience said they did not know what a digipak was.

7. There was more of an unsure-ness for our target audience as they answered this. It was dangerously close to being 50/50, just ten percent/twenty percent off as they answered 65% yes to a 35% no. This made us consider how we would make a digipak more relevant to their interests, and what they would enjoy in seeing something like this.

8. There was definitely a more detailed mix in this answer. The answers were "the artist" which got seven votes, "the logo/text/font of the song or artist" which got fourteen votes, as well as "a picture that relates to the song/artist" which got fourteen votes. This left us mildly confused, as it wasn't quite unanimous what our target audience wanted, but in the end would help us develop our digipak in more detail.

9. "What do you enjoy most about music videos" is a very vague question, and we got a range of answers. One was "I like them for different reasons. Sometimes for the story lines they portray, other times for purely stylistic reasons." This helped us emulate the struggle between narrative and conceptual and what we wanted. Another was "I usually pay a lot of attention to the lyrics of a song, so if the music video is a "movie" version of said song (where you can watch the lyrics but in a video) I really like it. Generally speaking, I pay a lot of attention to stories; music videos have to tell a story for me to like them. Bonus points if they include some type of symbolism, for example BTS' music videos I NEED U, I NEED U Prologue, Run, and I NEED U Japanese ver." In watching these, it helped us get more of a grasp on what our target audience craved and expected in terms of a music video.

10. Like question 9, "What don't you enjoy about music videos" is also vague, but our target audience did not disappoint. One response was "I dislike videos that make no sense to the song or artist. The music videos that are just meant to be 'fun' but have no real concept are useless to me as a viewer. Dance videos is my least favourite form of music video, specifically." This was a fair point, which we actually agreed with, but then recognized that we needed to have a variety of types of shots to include, and so would have to have more "fun" shots in our music video. Another response was "Pointless nudity." One of the main themes for our artist and us as creators is that intersectional feminism must be weaved in somewhere or other. Freedom or expression of one's self is important, but not at the cost of exploiting women for their bodies and not much else, so we definitely took this on board.

Research and Planning: Lip-syncing Sample Exercise (2)

Lip-syncing Sample Exercise

Initially, in order to check our ability to:

• operate a camera 
• lip-sync accompanied by music in the background 

We decided to do a test of the the song we are going to choose for our music video. We also did this to determine if we would need to use certain lighting or sit with ambient, natural light, and even then what layout we would go for (our actress in the middle of the screen, or the right/left sides of the camera. We ultimately found no differences between lighting and no lighting so decided to just simply stick with general, natural lighting. This could have been because the area we decided to film in, an open courtyard was well lit.

For this video, Lia lip-syncs to the song of "Feeling Myself" by Nicki Minaj, featuring Beyonce.

"Change the game with that digital drop,

know where you was when that digital drop,

I stop the world.

*beat* *beat*

Male or female it makes no difference,

I stop the world,

World: stop. Carry on."

The problems that we will encounter during the music video filming are varying. We have to take into account the environmental effects on our hearing of the music and eyesight so we can focus on the camera and film a good shot. Another problem will be the timing of the high definition, original song file to Lia's lip syncing, which might be too fast or too slow. As it was too fast pre-editing, we used the slow motion and speed up function in order to match it perfectly, so that would solve our problem.

Research and Planning: Lip-syncing Sample Exercise (1)

Lip-syncing Sample Exercise

Initially, in order to check our ability to:

1. operate a camera
2. lip-sync accompanied by music in the background 

We decided to do a test of the the song we are going to choose for our music video. We also did this to determine if we would need to use certain lighting or sit with ambient, natural light,  and even then what layout we would go for (our actress in the middle of the screen, or the right/left sides of the camera. We ultimately found no differences between lighting and no lighting so decided to just simply stick with general, natural lighting. This could have been because the area we decided to film in, an open courtyard was well lit.

Moving on, for this video, Lia lip-syncs to the song of "Under Control" by The Internet.