Group: Detailed Track Idea Plot

Talk Show Host Plan

·         Starts with a man in a business suit “sleeping” on a Lillo in the middle of a lake, the camera focus on his hand dipped in the water, his eye balls twitching underneath his eyelid and a zooming out bird’s eye view shoot of him lying there.

·         As soon as the drums and bass kick in at 34 seconds his eyes suddenly open, with an extreme close up of his pupils dilating. He begins to panic and it is clear he does know why he is here, so rolls onto his stomach to swim away. As he does he notices a figure standing on the shore of the lake, who every time we see them in a shot the lenses are blurred and distorted so we don’t know what they look like or who they are. The protagonist begins  to shot and scream at this character and at the line “you want me” begins to frantically paddle towards him, the camera does a slow-mo shot of the water being splashed with is hands. However as much as he paddles the shore seems to get further and further away and he falls into the water

·         As he falls into the water the camera fades into black and transitions to a scene in colour of the protagonist laying in a bed with people around him who are sobbing and crying

·         However as  the line “you want me” appears again he wakes again but this time on the shore (in black and white),  completely dry, and sees the figure in the distance again on a bridge

·         He starts to chase the figure but every time he gets close it disappears

·         This chase leads into a town where he stumbles around looking for the character. These scenes will consist of close up handicam shots of his face and of people in the street with hateful looks on their face. As the pro-agonist looks across to the opposite street things start getting weird, with reverse effects on people walking

·         He finally sees the figure and begins to shout again but as he does he looks up at the sun and it suddenly shuts off (we can do this by blending two shots of the sun and drama studio lights), and he is plunged into this cage of “green screens”

·         The protagonist starts to get angry that his world is gone and that he was so close to achieving his goal and starts to frantically scream and bang on the walls of his cage

·         After a while he curls up into a ball and closes his eyes hoping it will all go away. As he does the camera does an extreme close up of his eyes and goes black. While it’s black it flickers with shots of the bed scene

·         Suddenly a close up is interjected of his eyes opening in black and white and he is on the Lillo

EN: Goffman Et Al Analysis

Deftones- Sextape

Sextape, a music video for the band Deftones directed by Zak Forrest and Chad Liebengnth, shows an objectified view of women with the simple fact that only females are featured within the video. The video focuses on two women floating in water and kissing, touching and flirting. This supports Erving Goffman, Sut Jhally and Jean Killbourne’s ideologies on the feminine touch. In the music video the camera lingers and focuses on shots of the two girls touching each other, showing the female body as something to be desired and as precious. This sense of preciousness is also reinforced by the colourful lighting refracted through the water, which gives it a psychedelic feel and as if there is something “magical”, which can be interpreted as a connotation of pleasure. A ritual of subordination is also conveyed as through their playful nature and the lighting the two women are almost represented in a childlike manner.

Another factor that needs to be established is the fact that Sextape is founded on a scopophillic approach as the preferred reading of the content is for the male audience to enjoy, as an expression of sexuality. Consequently Laura Mulvey’s view on the male gaze in the mid 1970’s is very applicable. The use of dismembering camera shots means as an audience we see these women objectively through the archetypal “fantasy” of heterosexual men. However because the video contains interactions between two women, instead of a man and a woman, it could be argued that we are not necessarily seeing the camera through the agenda and eyes of a heterosexual male and ‘Sextape’ could actually cater for the female spectator through transsexual identification with men, as discussed in criticisms to Mulvey’s work.  

TB: The music industry - contextual research

The Music Industry – Contextual Research

1. It is the duty of the record label to promote the video and the band, so the final decision lies with them. Large companies will be able to organise a wide variety of marketing techniques such as a point of sale is a store such as HMV. Also if the budget is big enough then a TV or radio advert can be a very effective marketing tool. It is usually the case that a record label will have an in-house marketing team but small companies sometimes will employ a small advertising team for the specific job.

2. A music video is a vital piece of marketing for the band. It is a visual representation of the bands style and “meta narrative”. Music videos are seen by an extremely large audience and are an opportunity to be eye catching and memorable to stay in the viewer’s mind. If the director of the video decides to break the rules and conventions of the genre then the video can become controversial which is memorable and is good publicity for the band or artist.

3. The process of making a music video is very similar to making a film opening. The first step after you have all your equipment is to plan your shoot. This involves drawing a storyboard and making a list of all the props that are needed. Then it’s the actually filming. When the director has all of the necessary shots then it’s the editor’s job to piece them together.

EN: Goodwin Analysis on 'Celestine' by Spector

When considering the key features of a music video, Andrew Goodwin (‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ 1992) identifies a number of conventions which can be applied to the music video for ‘Celestine’ by Spector, directed by Jed Cullen in 2012.

Firstly he stated that music videos demonstrate genre characteristics. This video could be categorised as being in the Indie Rock genre. It follows the conventions of this genre but adopting a fast cutting rate that represents and connotes the energy and pace of the music of its upbeat and contemporary style. ‘Celestine’ also puts great emphasis on reinforcing a star image and building upon the bands meta-narrative. It achieves this by giving the members (especially the lead singer) prevalence; with close ups and BCU’s highlighting recognisable personal features and by using a voyeuristic and lingering slower rate of cut when focusing on them. It also follows the Indie –rock trends in the fact that it is in the format of a live performance instead of a narrative, and uses iconography to convey several abstract semiotics that have loaded social messages to the target audience e.g. a playful puppy or a mirror. However ‘Celestine’ does employ an creative approach to these conventions in that it uses cross genre semiotics; it employs the use of flashing fonts and words at the beginning of the video which is a trend often seen in dance or pop music videos and also uses mise-en-scene such as the dog which is a repeating theme in many often rap videos.

Goodwin discussed the relationship between lyrics and visuals. In relation to Celestine it is clear that the relationship between the lyrics and music is disjunctive, as there is no real link. Although there is some link in the simple fact that it is in the form of a live performance and the artists are seen lip synching to the words, the themes and meanings of the lyrics are not amplified or illustrated and instead are played over scenes that seem to juxtapose in abstractness.

In Celestine there are references to the looking retrospectively through examples of mirrors and glass. This could be seen as a artisitical feature as a metaphor for looking inwards at ones self, however in these genre's characteristics mirrors are often used as a way of drawing attention to the artist, seen in a vanity light to make the artist look desirable.

Because Music videos are of a postmodern media form they often borrow and rework ideas from other texts and forms. 'Celestine' does this by using intertexual references in the form of retro 50’s rock n’ roll fashion pastiche utilising mise-en-scene of slick back hair, retro probs etc

JS: Lesson Update

We are currently working on a variety of group tasks in preparation for the pitch next wednesday. We need to finalise our storyboard highlighting six key scenes, while also completing our own location reccie of the areas in which we hope to film. These, as well as the audience research will help us become more confident about what our music video will look like, while we can also become more confident when delivering the pitch.

Group:Audience Profile

Group: Pre-production Planning

Costume:

Protagonist:

•  The main character will wear an archetypal business costume, as his clothes will consist of a full suit; a black suit jacket, black trousers, a black shirt and a black tie.
• The character will be wearing a helmet, as this symbolises him as 'someone different', highlighting our theme of social alienation.
• The shoes worn will also be black and smart

Antagonist:

• Costume will not be visible on the character as we will use a visual technique to make the antagonist appear as a 'blur'
• This will create enigma as the audience will question who this character is and what his purpose is

Props

• Lilo - this will be used by the protagonist, floating in a river on his own, emphasising his loneliness and disconnection with society
• Knife - this prop has connotations of crime and murder, dark themes that reflect the feelings of the protagonist throughout the opening of the music video
• Watch - used to highlight present time, to differentiate between the flashbacks and the present

Location

• Tunbridge Wells Town Centre - This is a busy area and there will be plenty of people and potential hazards, but this will be an ideal place to shoot the 'sped-up' shot, in which the protagonist will be standing still facing the camera, while objects around him, for example, cars and people. This will be a key shot, as it will highlight the character's disconnection with society
• Sevenoaks, Bat and Ball - This area contains a lake that we will use for one of our signature shots in the music video, which will involve the lead character on a lilo. This emphasises the protagonist's loneliness and also makes intertextual references to popular culture, such as the film 'Sexy Beast' with Ray Winstone, which contains a similar shot