AD - Music Video Animatic

Here is all our storyboards compiled into an editied in time representation of our muic Video as an Animatic

JL - Audience Research evaluation

We asked 21 15-30 year olds in our questionnaire. We used an online survey program which allowed us to make the questionnaires on the computer and distribute them on the internet. This way, we could send the questionnaires directly to our target audience and around the world. We wanted to get the questionnaire on to a hellogoodbye forum but as the bands official site doesn't have a forum we found another fan site called http://www.hgbfans.com/. We contacted the webmaster and managed to get our survey onto the front page. Over one night we got 21 responses which was enough for our audience research.

Our first question on our questionnaire was what weather came to their mind when listening to the track. 90% of people said sunny /summer day came to there mind so this is the type of weather we are hoping for. We also asked what type of mood they would associated with this tracks. The most popular answers were fun, happy and energetic.

As you can see in the barchart above, when we asked what colours they would associate with our track yellow, orange and blue were most popular. As a result, on our beach shots we will add a wind breaker or a parasol to add more colour into the shot. We also decided to use a green ukele.

We were surprised to see that people thought that inside of a house was a suitable location so we have decided to add this scene in at the start of our music video. It suits the feel of our video.

Although the questionnaire was successful we did have some draw backs which we could have improved on. For e.g. When we asked what people wanted to see in this video, we had a few responses which were quite brief. someone said interesting concept. We could have overcomed this by asking them to be more specific.

JL - Storyboarding

[0:00] When we first met

Jamie wakes up on a pizza, close up to face
Your hair was long and brown

Close up of Jamie getting up with Emily behind him

Grabs glasses from/of coffee table

Extreme close up of Jamies eyes and he puts on glasses
You hadn’t yet cut it all off

Jamies leaves the lounge and go to the kitchen
And now it’s long once again, oh

Oh, it’s long once again [0:14]
A series of shots of Jamie making coffee

[0:17]As I kept track of every haircut that we ever had

Returns to lounge with two coffees, walks past gorilla hugging sleeping.
I could, I could see how long it had been, oh
Oh, how long it had been [0:30]

Various shots of them joking around
[0:33] And this thought, made it clearer
I ought to be near her [0:41]

Leaves and upon returning the girl is gone

[DRUMS]

Series of shots of gorilla and banana playing bongo drums
[0:46] All I see is where our days repeat

Extreme close up of Jamies face

Band shot with instruments, shot on the beach

Side view of Jamies face

Close up of bass

Mid close up, instruments, pan across
And our love goes on

Close up on Jamies face, guitarist face in background

Drummer close up

Jamie close up

Outdoors, Jamie + guitarist holding ukele

As our hair grows long [1:04]
Close up Jamie, Close up on feet tapping

[1:07] Oh, Chelsea Lynn

Jamie leaves the house in search of Emily
I watched your hair grow from the root to tip

Goes to a park and sits on a bench, sees Emily walking across a cliff edge
I know, I know I have always known

Series of intercutting shots of them trying to find each other
And I always will know[1:20]

Same narrative between cow and gorilla
Oh, oh
[1:24] That I could have a single direction until I am dead

Have the gorilla chasing the cow
I’ll go, I’ll go as I always have gone, and
And I always will go[1:37]
Oh, oh

[1:41] This thought made it clearer
I ought to be near her[1:48]
[DRUMS]
[1:53] All I see is where our days repeat

Performance shots on beach
And our love goes on

Performance intercut with party scene

As our hair grows long

Emily and Jamie kissing

JL - Pitch

On Monday 12th October we had to pitch our idea to the class. This is our presentation:

Pitch

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Slide 3
Album covers are colourful, summer, beach, retro, comic, cartoony, instruments, not many photos

Slide 4
Humorous, they’re not serious in their music videos, parody of boy bands and copy what rappers do like Jay Z[pic]. Costumes: in their videos we saw someone dressed as a beer bottle so we are gonna get a gorilla suit and banana suit.

Slide 5
Most cuts don’t last one second, in tempo with the song. 40% of meat shots.

Slide 6
19/21 people said sunny weather (90%), When we asked what colours they associated with this track these were the responses. Colours such as yellow/orange / blue / red were most popular. This told us that colour played an important role in our video and we will wear brightly coloured clothes.

Slide 7
Beach was deemed the most suitable location followed by Park and Fields… Inside house was quite popular so we have decided to add this in.

Slide 8
We have a parallel narrative, a love story of a boy chasing a girl and another side story of a gorilla chasing a banana as filler shots and to add a parody/comedic effect.

Slide 9
These costumes match conventions of videos.

Slide 14
This is an idea for an album cover, has the name / single name. colourful, cartoony.

JB - Video Analysis 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwvpOtoxMZQ

embedding disabled

Product Analysis
Genre and Narrative
I have chosen the video Party In Your Bedroom by Cash Cash who are a pop punk/powerpop band. There are some identifiable conventions in this video that are conventions of a powerpop video such as the indie dress style. The members of the band are wearing tight T-shirts and tight jeans, except the drummer who seems to be wearing a comical vest shirt and the singer who is wearing retro sporting gear, which when looking at other videos of this genre we found to be a normal thing for bands of this nature. The conventional storyline is taking place, a love story set in a high school era. The love story consists of a geek and a attractive, popular female. In Hellogoodbye's video to Baby, it's fact, this story line is evident, which shows that this type of love story is used a lot. This video is mostly performance with some narrative added in. There is a slight notion of looking, for example there are many close ups of two dollar signs, $$. The bands name is Cash Cash, so this could be them giving the audience a sign. Also when the man who looks like a wannabe gangster walks into the room full of ladies, he seems to look at himself in the mirror whilst all the ladies leave. There is a slight link between the music and the visuals. For example when the jock is introduced and he shoulder barges the geek, when contact is made, it sounds like a bass drum is hit. When the wannabe called Sam walks upstairs to the room full of ladies the lyrics change to 'Upstairs all alone'. He is not alone at this point but he does later scare the ladies away so he does end up alone. Also the main lyric 'Party in your bedroom' is clearly shown throughout seeing as the video is set out as a party inside someone's entire house. Another conventional thing about the costume in this video is that there is a scene where a man walks into the party wearing a penguin costume. In many powerpop videos people seem to be wearing costumes such as a beer costume in the video Bonnie Taylor Shakedown by Hellogoodbye. This video seems to be more amplification becase the lyrics and visuals kind of mix. I would consider this video to be more for the bands promotion due to heavy performance shots and a lot of meat shots showing the singer.

Media Language
In this music video there are a lot of meat shots and close ups of the performers. This is to show a realism about the band and to show that they are serious musicians who do play their instruments. They use a lot of visual effects when editing, such as a close up of the man's jumper to a wipe into a close up of the singer. There is also a lot of editing where it misses out a few frames. These are used to make the video seem more visibly pleasing to the audience and also to make the shots act in time with the music and cuts. The cutting rate seems to be quite fast in this video. This is conventional to most powerpop videos seeing as powerpop is quite upbeat. There are also more mid shots in this video than other shots. This seems to be evident in many powerpop videos seeing as in other videos I have seen there are a lot of mid shots. The director has been showing us the main characters throughout by using a freeze frame and adding information about the characters as well as comical information about them too, also very stereotypical information such as the jocks future career to be a Quick stop worker. Quite a lot of this video seems to be filmed in handicam. This gives the video a realistic look and also the camera is able to move when the song gets more upbeat which gives a good effect to the video. This video is shot in a house where a party seems to be happening. This goes with the whole theme of the song. The characters seem to be dressed very stereotypically for the roles they are playing, and the band seem to be dressed like bands in their genre should be. There may be some intertextual references to popular culture like high school films and stereotypical television films like that. There are the main characters such as the geek, jock, the pretty girl, the boy who likes the pretty girl but she doesn't notice him, the drug addict and the wannabe cool person. These can all be seen in most American contemporary high school films/television shows.

Representation
The band are seen in this video as being quiet upbeat, lively and fun. This is shown in the video by us being able to see them dancing around, jumping around and having a good time. They all seem to have smiles on their faces which could show that they are grateful for how lucky they are to be successful in the music industry and could also show that they are a happy band. This can help to sell their music because it will show people that they are quite fun and cool and may make people who listen to their music feel that way too. Also the fact that they have used teenage themes and are shooting scenes of a party may make it sell more to a teenage audience because they may see this as fun and listening to this music may make them seem cooler. There are plenty of different social groups in this video. The geek is represented as quite shy, the butt of the jokes and is a very stereotypical geek via the way he is dressed. The jock is very stereotypical too because he is seen as very macho, for example when he does a chest bump with some other guy. He is also seen as being quite arrogant because when Jean Paul is talking to the girl he likes the jock just walks in front of him and starts talking to her. The wannabe cool man is seen as being a failure with the women and also seen as arrogant and vain, when he is looking at himself in the mirror. Jean Paul is seen as quite normal because he is dressed very contemporary and has a good attitude towards most things. The hippie/drug addict is seen as very laid back and doesn't seem to care about much. Men seem to be represented as quite in charge and macho in this video, This is seen when the jock seems to take control over most things. Women do seem to have a lot of control in this video though because the main aim for most of the guys in the video is to try to lure the ladies but the ladies seem to walk away from most of them, until the geek gets the woman at the end.

Institution and Audience
This music video would be consumed by more of an ambient audience because it seems to be a lot more performance based, so people would not need to tune in to a narrative. This would be viewed on channels such as Kerrang! Or MTV because it is quite popular. The record label would have played a huge part in this music video. The most likely would have funded the whole thing and done most of the casting, but I think the band would have come up with the ideas seeing as it is their music and they want to be represented in a way that suits them.

JL - Video Analysis 2

Fountains of Wayne - Stacys Mom



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZLfasMPOU4

Genre and Narrative
Fountains of Wayne are a powerpop band. Powerpop draws inspiration from the 1960s and typically incorporates a combination of musical devices such as strong melodies, crisp vocal harmonies, economical arrangements and prominent guitar rifts. The tempo of this song is upbeat and lively. It is about a boy who is attracted to his friends mum.

Powerpop videos, like rock videos, usually show the band playing instruments in the majority of the video. However, in this video the band are not seen until the chorus. There is a visual effect on the band. They are black and white and the background is a bright purple/pink. They also have a couple of white lines surrounding there body. This gives us a very retro feel which relates to the origins of powerpop.

The song is called Stacys mom and is about a boy who is attracted to Stacys mom. The video is a direct illustration of the lyrics. It shows the boy at Staceys house trying to impress her mum by playing it cool and ignoring Stacy herself. The first verse starts by saying "Can I come over after school? We can hang by the pool." The video shows them by the pool. The following lines show Staceys mum carrying a few documents wearing a black top and black skirt which could be associated with an office worker. The lyrics are "Did your mum get back from her business trip?".

There is a lack of the band throughout the video. We do not see them perform on a location in the video. As a result the boy fills the position of a rock star. Around Staceys house he is in a swimming pool with sunglasses on, on a thrown like chair, a girl is trying to impress him and brings him drinks in a glass bottle. Also, near the end of the video at 3:08 we see him in a tuxedo holding a rose which makes him look rich and high class. The boy is wearing a t-shirt which says 'Mr. Wonderful' it could refer to rock stars who are over arrogant. The scene at the end where Staceys mum is pole dancing reminds me of after gig parties that rockstars may have where attractive females are dancing.

Although the band do not play a big role in the music video we can see them through notion of looking. During the video we see the band performing within the narrative storyline. We see them perform on the posters in the girls room, magazines, on television during the second chorus and reflection of the girls sunglasses during the second verse.

I think that in some aspects this video can be considered a form of art. It follows many conventions of music videos by having attractive females and high production values but it maintains the bands image by having them perform within the video but in a different location. I think the visual effect of a pink background, black and white performers and white surrounding is effective in powerpop videos as it relates back to the retro look which is when powerpop was formed. The white lines look likes the sketches that artists leave in a cartoon drawing. Cartoon effects are really common in powerpop album art covers.



At the end of the first chorus there is a series of fast cutting rates which are in sync with the drum beat and within these cuts there is just a shot of the bands name in a shape of a CD.



Media Language


Unlike conventional music videos this track has more shots of the narrative then the band itself. Usually the main focus is the band but in this video, the band are not seen much throughout the verses but are seen quite a lot during the chorus where they follow usual conventions. There is a fast cutting rate as the tempo of the music is more upbeat and there are plenty of meat shots of the band. There are also a lot of close up of the band playing instruments. Following the first chorus the camera is filming a stack of magazines by the swimming pool. This shot lasts for 8 seconds without moving which is very unusual as most shots in powerpop videos last under 1 second but within this shot, on the magazine we see the band performing. They are still in the pink background and the band is still black and white. There are various cuts and shots within the magazine shot.



The focus of the narrative are on Stacey and her mum. This means that there are a lot of shots of both of them. During the second verse Staceys mum is getting a massage in the garden and we see a lot of shots of dismemberment. The same can be seen during the final verse where Staceys mum is pole dancing in their kitchen. Collectively, the shots anchor the image and song name of Staceys mum. This is further enhanced when stacey is drinking out of a straw with a star on it which glistens in the sun to make it look as though it shines.

There are many intertextual references in this video. First of, there is the whole idea that many young boys fantasize about an adolescent mother. This is seen in many teen movies such as American Pie.

In the first scene of the music video where there are a group of people waiting we see a boy with sunglasses, long hair, shirt and tie. This person is a reference to Ric Ocasek, the Cars front man. This is further enhanced by the number plate of Stacys mums car. Which shows "I ♥ Ric". At 1:15 we see the lead bouncing his head to the music, this is a reference to Elliot Easton the guitarist from the cars. There are further references with to the cars by the Roland Juno 6 keyboard and the album cover showing 'Stacys mom' in a car is a reference to a number of Cars album covers.

When Stacy was sun bathing in the garden we see her in some heart shaped sunglasses, this is reference to the 1962 film Lolita. The video also references the 1982 Fast times at Ridgemount High. In the video the boy is in Stacys toilet and sees Stacys mum coming out of the swimming pool. The boy begins masturbate and before he finishes Stacy opens the door and catches him red handed and quickly closes the door laughing. This also happened in the movie.



Representation

The band are not seen that much throughout the video but when they are seen they come across as quite retro because of the colours they use. They are also all wearing really smart suits. This could represent their band image as not being your typical rugged rockstar but a smart rock type band. This is quite typical in powerpop artist. For e.g. Hellogoodbye often wear suits when performing. They usually wear checked shirts and cardigans in their music videos. We also see the band playing the instruments which tells us that they write and play their own music unlike some manufactered bands.

Throughout the music video we see 3 specific social groups. First of all there is the group of school boys at the start. These boys get excited when they see Stacys mum, they represent typical teenage boys when they see an attractive elder and tries to impress them like Stacys friend trieds to do throughout the video. The 2nd social group is Stacy herself. She is the typical 'girl next door' or the 'cheerleader' in school. She is seen to try and impress the good looking boys but ignoring the others as she pushes her way through when she is getting picked up. And she always thinks that her friend is trying to impress her when it was actually her mother. The final group is Stacys mum. She is an attractive business mother who enjoys massages and and is seen as quite wealthy because of her swimming pool and nice car even though she doesn't have a husband (Since your dad left, your mum can do with a guy like me)

Institution and Audience

This song was gained worldwide fame mainly because of it's video and is Fountains of Wayne most known song. It charted in America and England making it a mainstream song. I would expect to see this music video on mainstream channels such as TMF and 4Music who plays a variety popular songs such as The Saturdays and Jay Z. I would say that this video is ambient viewing. This is because it does not have a particular storyline we need to follow and does not require the viewer to think about what the video is trying to portray. The viewer can have the song in the background and can view the video at any time and able to get into it. The song itself is quite repetitive so is able to get into the viewers mind if viewed passively.

The record label would need to pay a lot of money to get the video onto the the mainstream channel but with the amount of people hooked onto the video and bought the single the money would've been worth it.

JL - When we first met video

On the 24th September 2009 Hellogoodbye released their offical music video for 'When we first met', the video we were planning to make a video for. As a group we have discussed this and have concluded that we will continue to make this video as we have already discussed the final ideas. We decided to do this song at the start of September as seen in this post.

The video shows some shots that we were planning to use. For e.g. at 1:14 in the official music video they have a shot where they walk through a tree and they appear on the other side with instruments. On our trip to Brighton (22nd September) we have experimented with this shot. It is in our Brighton video at 1:10 called Tree shot.