Music video/promo video

What is a music video is

Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. This is when the artist uses short images and their song to promote their music.

What ‘I’ thought a promo video was
After looking at some YouTube clips of music videos and then typing in ‘promo video’ I found out there is a slight difference. Although a ‘promo’ video is still used to promote the single/artist/album it would usually be used thorough advertisement through the television unlike a music video would be on specific music channels on TV or on the internet.

As you can see the music promo video consists of 

Hairstyles and outfit choices for the band

We have picked our band members to be different ethnicity's, this is why our band will consist of one black girl and two white girls. The reason we have decided this is because from our questionnaire we found that mostly 'black-African' people listened to 'Soul/RNB, do we thought it would be right to add a blck person, plus most Soul/RnB singers tend to be 'black' such as Mary J Blige and Emeli Sande. One the other hand, we have created diversion by having two 'white' people as well creating a unique combination that works well, as well as the three of them together having a very edgy look. All three members of our band are girls as our conventions questionnaire also suggested that girls mostly listen to Soul/RnB. We are also thinking of using three more 'extras' in the video who will be having minor roles such as walking past as you can see from our story board.

Hairstyles

Alice had naturally red hair, like the model in this picture but more bright. We think that she should have her hair up or even down like this picture. We feel that he hair will go with the theme as well as adding a unique colour.

Genelle's updo will have an elegant and sophisticated look similar to this models.

Jess will have a an updo or have her hair let down, she has brunette hair with a full fringe that can be very versatile and styles easily, much like this models.

Outfit Suggestion

This is roughly the colour scheme me and my partner are encouraging our models to be wearing. It doesn't have to be exactly these items thought. We would primarily like dark colours such as black but combined with elegant colours such as dark blue, Burgundy or dark green. We choose this dress code because our target audience also suggested the dress code should be elegant dresses and skirts.

Story Board

Camera angles
When filming our music video we are planning of using a varity of different camera angles. These range from close-ups to show emotion to long shots and mid shots. We are also going to use traking camera movements as the camera follows Genelle alot as well as tilt and pan's.


Facial expressions
The general story of our music video (park scenes) is how Genelle's upset about something and we don't know who is holding the camera becasue it's a point of view camera. As the video progresses the lyrics we see a change in the Genelle's attitude as she is smilling alot and having a good time, which goes with the lyrics being less negative.

Lighting
The lighting is going to be mainly bright because of the 'sunny' location of the outside. For the hall scenes we are hoping to shoot in day time so that there is streaming sunlight to avoid it looking to much like a school hall. We are also hoping that the angle of the sunlight doesn't shadow the band so that they look too light or dark from some angles.
Story board
Are storyboard is telling the story of a girl who seems to be annoyed with a 'mysterious' person we don't know because it's a point of view camera, in other terms this person is 'enigmatic'. She tends to often get annoyed with 'this person' but can't hold back a 'smile or two'. As the video progresses  we see a change in emotions with Genelle as she seems more happy (look above for facial expressions used) as this 'person' tries to charm her. The general gist of the video is for the audience to think of the 'point of view' person of who they want it to be. Initially  from the audience feed back we had a lot of suggestions of a 'love story' and we are hoping to give 'hints' of that as scene 5 is showing 'the person' handing her a flower, which you would connote with romance. When the video shows the performance scenes they are not going to be in form of a point of view camera.

The shot starts of with showing a mid shot of Genelle in a room reading a 'fairy tale' book about 'prince and princesss' before she falls a sleep. To move to the next scene we are thinking of using a transition that fades into a white then shows her sitting on a park bench. This shot will also be from the side and it will be a close up so we can see her annoyed expression at the 'point of view' camera. We then move onto quite a few jump cuts as she moves down the bench but is followed by the camera.

The first box is supposed is a low angle shot of the 'point of view' person giving Genelle a rose. We are using a low angle shot becasue we want her to look like the 'one in control as she doesn't want to talk to the 'person' but then throughout the video the camera angles change to show equality and that she is feeling better. A pan will be used to follow Genelle from the side too as she walks of into the next scene which will be a mid shot of the autumn leaves falling on her.

The first box is showing a long shot of two friends that used to be friends with Genelle but are now giving her a 'unpleasent' smile as the lyrics say 'the friends you have can disappear.' The 2nd box is showing a random girl waring stylish clothes (this is ment to be a side shot and a pan following her as she walks behind the tree. She then re-appears in 'ragged clothes' as the lyrics in the song say 'money's all gone'. A jump cut will be used with a transition next to present the band for the first time performing .

The fisrt box shows that we are going to use a pan to go around the band in a 'circular' motion so it looks more effective after the long shot of the. We are going to start of by showing Genelle from the side. The next box shows a transition to a 'butterfly' flying which then cuts to the wine scenes, for showing the 'wine' disappearing quickly from the glass-this will be a jump cut.

The first box shows the chorus again with a long shot which then goes to showing a 'stero' and swithes back to a mid shot of the band. We then have a jump cut with a 'dissolving' transition to the close up of the keyboard.

The blank box is supposed to show a transition which then goes back to the park scenes where Genelle is trying to balance on a brick wall with the camera standing away from her while she walks towards it. The 3rd box shows that when she 'stumbles' she is held up by this 'mysterious' person her possible love interest. The transition into the next scene is going to be a 'dissolving blurry one' with a slowing down effect to show the book burning, Genelle tripping over and the next scene of the box burning connotes the relationship between Genelle and her 'love interest  it is supposed to show the ups and downs of their relationship and the fact that he is always there for her.

The first box is going to show a close up of the tambourine as Alice plays it, which then moves on to the next scene of Genelle on a merry go round in the park. The camera is going to be held still at this point with just the merry go round spinning, it will be a close up to show that Genelle is happy. The end scene is going to be showing the band a again with a mid shot to show all three members one by one, and show Genelle singing into the camera before it fades out to black.

As you can see from our story board we are thinking of doing the music video shots as quite a few 'jump' shots to switch between the 'stage' scenes and the park scenes. We are hoping to use transitions to run more smoothly and make them look more professional. You can also see that we have tried to match the music lyrics to the story story board so the audience can have a 'narative' based music video as well as a performance based one.

Location and props for main music video

Me and my partner have decided that it is important for that we have an outside location as most of our Audience Feedback suggested. This is why me and Sofia have decided that it would be a good idea to make one of the locations a park. We have to make sure that the weather is 'sunny' because it goes with the connotations of the song. We were also thinking of making one of the locations the school hall, as it looks like a concert setting. We have come up with the idea of using the 'concert' scenes when the song comes to the chorus, this is because we want the rest of the song to be like a story. The idea of our music video is to shoot the park scenes only with Ghenell as you can see from our story board, this is because she is the lead singer and the camera is a point of view camera. The stage scenes will be in the school hall with all three members of the group playing an instrument while performing the chorus. Another location we are going to have is the school library  there is a corner next to the window sill that we need for the first few seconds of the shot in the beginning.

Location photos (setting 1)
Scadburry park- This is were we are planning to have the main story. As you can see most of the pictures have a footpath, like our storyboard we want our main singer to be walking along the foot path connoting her life as a 'journey' with ups and downs.

Location photo's- (setting 2)
Our second setting is the school hall which we will use as a stage. This is were the band are going to be performing altogether.

Props

For the scenes in the park I am hoping on using minimal props. These include:

 These are the props we are hoping to use for the out door scenes with Genelle (the lead singer). The rose and bottle of fake wine (really Ribbeana) will be used in the park, however the burning book will be used in Sofia's back garden as she films because we know it is very dangerous, therefore there will be a supervised adult.

Props that we are planning on using for the 'stage' filming include:







From the top, Alice (the red haired model) will be playing the tambourine, she is actually the drummer of the band but in this music video she is showing of her musical talent. Genelle will be singing in the front with the microphone and stand, while Jess plays the keyboard.

The set up of the band will hopefully be in a 'triangular formation' as the other two aren't singing in the band we don't want them to be too far apart so that the tambourinist playing by herself looks odd.

Lyrics: Emeli Sande-Lifetime

Linking the lyric's and the Audience feedback me and my partner have decided that we are going to have a romantic element to the music video in the beginning  but this can vary towards what the audience want to interpret, as the camera is going to be the boyfriend/friend/ family member  We want the band, will consists of three girls, will be performing on stage and there will be flashbacks. We want to film on a good sunny day.

We think that having a mixture within the song lyrics gives us a good opportunity to include and relate to the song lyrics so it doesn't have to specifically be a 'love' story, this is why the song is versatile.

In conclusion with the Audience Feedback and analyzing the lyrics, me and Sofia have decided to have a main singer from the band of three girls to be in the main clips of the video this means the two verses that will be shown as a story, whereas, the chorus will have all three of the band members performing together. The reason we have picked the chorus showing the band members performing together is because we want to advertise the band and show unity. This will mean half of our music video will be 'performance based.'
Link to song:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpdhNFFk5yY

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Audience Feedback

This is our brainstorm showing the audience feedback we revived from a group of ten girls ages between 16-35.  We decided to choose this group because from the questionnaire we found out that most of the target audience are females. From the audience feedback we found what iconography our target audience relate to this song. The most common thing people were saying were things like the setting being somewhere 'sunny' and at 'daytime'. In contrast one person said that it could also be a 'cold evening'. The audience also suggests that a girl sings and has something active to do such as 'walking around'' and having a 'happy mood'. They also linked the theme being 'love' and that there should be a 'romance' aspect to it. Helpful feedback was also knowing what kind of video they wanted most of them said narrative based or 'singing straight to the camera''.


 

Permission from record company

This is a image of the contact form of Emili Sande record label EMI/ Virgin records.



This is a another image of the contact form. This image shows me and my partner I asking for permission to use Emili Sande song "Lifetime" for our music video.

Results: Conventions Questionnaire

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Question 1 shows us how 'often' people listen to Soul/RnB, 37.5% say 'all the time' which is similar to the 'sometimes' option, this is good as most of our target audience listen to our chosen genre.

Question 2 shows us the 'style' of Soul/RnB music our target audience listen to most. The majority of our target audience chose upbeat RnB rhythm like 'Beyonce's' music which was 45.8%.  25% chose 'instrumental' such as 'Alicia Keys' and 'Emeli Sande', while 16.7% chose Amy Winehouse. We feel that because there is a mixture of sub-genres our song caters for all of them because it's a bit of jazz as well as up beat music.

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Question 3 looks deeper into 'which type of song' the target audience like, this type of questions shows us the 'emotion' people would relate to with a Soul/RnB song. 43.5% chose 'happy love song', 17.4% chosea 'slow love song/song about families or friend'. As you can see our chosen song by Emeli Sande can be interpreted in certain ways so it could be seen as a 'love song' or a 'song about family or friend' so it is good that the audience chose these two options as the highest. Question 4 shows us what Soul/RnB artist our target audience listen to most. 34.8% chose Emeli Sande which is good as she was our chosen artist. 26.1% chose Beyonce, while Aretha Franklin which shows that the target audience don't want such as 'jazz' song.

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Question 5 is about the setting you expect to see in a Soul/RnB music video. 29.2% chose 'a stage with instruments and a microphone', we feel this would be an effective way of promoting a band in the music video as a whole. 'A glamorous setting e.g. hotel' was second best while a 'natural setting' was third. 'A natural based setting' is 25% which isn't bad as we were hoping from the audience feedback combined with our own idea of the song to be in a sunny location like the park.

Question 5 shows us what colour theme the audience would like, 62.5% suggested elegant dark colours such as 'black, grey, white', we can use this to suggest the colour of clothing or setting and editing techniques.  25% also suggested bright glamorous colours.

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Question 7 shows us that 45.8% of the audience would like the band to be wearing elegant style clothing such as dresses and skirts. With 33.3% wanting to retro style clothes.

Question 8 shows us why people listen to me Soul/RnB music, 77.3% said they listen to it for entertainment. Whereas 13.6% said escapism.

In general from or conventions questionnaire we have found out that people who listen to Soul/RnB music 'a lot', the majority of the audience like upbeat 'happy music' like Beyonce. The majority listen to Emeli Sande. For setting the audience choose a stage which shows a performance as well as a glamourous setting. Me and Sofia are thinking of using a stage setting for some parts of our song but also like a natural sunny setting such as the park. The colours for the theme is dark, but we can also combine the 'glamourous' clolours as they were the second highest chosen by the audience. We are thinking of including the dress code as thse colours to go with the theme. As the target audience listen to Soul/RnB music for entertainment. Katz, Gurevitch and Haas's would describe this as an affective need for the audience, as well as the escapism being a way to release tention becasue the music may be a way of 'getting away', having a good time and relxing for some.

Coventions Questionnaire

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2V2Y6CW
This is our conventions questionnaire consisting of 8 questions based on the genre of music which was soul and R&B. By doing this we can get an idea of what to include in the music video and what the target audience would like to hear.

Theories

There are many ways you can apply theories to what conventions a music video or any other form of advertising or entertainment has.

In a 1973 study by Katz, Gurevitch and Haas, mass media was described as a means by which individuals connect or disconnect themselves with others. They developed 35 needs based on the social and psychological functions of the mass media, and placed them in five categories:

• (1) Cognitive needs — Acquiring information, knowledge and understanding;
• (2) Affective needs — Emotion, pleasure, feelings;
• (3) Personal integrative needs — Credibility, stability, status;
• (4) Social integrative needs — Family and friends; and
• (5) Tension release needs — Escape and diversion.

An example of this would be how adults may watch soaps such as Eastenders as escapism from there busy world to take sometime out and relax to watch it as they can relate to some aspects of the soap to thier own lives.

Frith (1988) talks about how music videos are characterized into three catogories, there catagories are:

• Performance based-To covey a in-concert experience, performance based.
• Narative based- Has a sory line to do with the lyrics of the music video
• Concept based-Metaphor based video which has more then one meaning, in other words quite random.

Questionnaire results: Audience Demographic

This bar chart shows the amount of my respondents that are male(10 respondents) and female(20 respondents). The bar chart also shows the age group of my male respondents which are 16-25(6 of my male respondents), 26-35(4 of my male respondents) and 36 and over( no male respondents of that age group). The third bar chart also shows the age group of my female respondents which are 16-25(8 of my female respondents),26-35(8 of my female respondents) and 36 and over( 4 of female respondents).





This bar chart shows the amount of male and female respondents ethnic minorities. The ethnic minorities includes white British(4 male respondents and 6 of my female respondents), Mixed( 2 of my male respondents and 2 of my female), Arab( 1 of my male respondents and 2 of my female respondents),White African( non of my male respondents and 3 of my female respondents), Asian( non of my male respondents and 2 of my female respondents) and other( non of my male respondents and 1 of my female respondents).


This is a pie chart showing how many female and male respondents like Soul/RnB music.




This pie chart shows the amount of my female and male respondents from different age groups like Soul/RnB music.

This bar chart shows the amount of my female and respondents from different ethnic minorities that like Soul/RnB music.

Analysis overall of the results

 Overall, the results from our audience demographic's questionnaire shows that ethnicity and age are a big factor to consider when looking at how many people like Soul/RnB music they all have a different intrest in music. The age range that listen to Soul/RnB music varies from 16-35, and this was mostly women. I also found out that Soul/RnB genre is popular within the Black African and White British audience. This also links to my research on Soul/RnB music being more popular within the black African American culture dating way back to the 1950's.

Questionnaire: Audience demographics

This is the link to the questionnaire me and my partner created based on audience demographic. The questionnaire was made on SurveyMonkey.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?PREVIEW_MODE=DO_NOT_USE_THIS_LINK_FOR_COLLECTION&sm=%2b4enCzrf0CcpEmbZni8Y5K8mK0EegaaOWtJ4DrRRk2g%3d

Me and Sofia have decided to do a seperate questionnaire to find out what our target audience would be for the genre we have picked. One is to do with the audience demographic, so we know who our target audience would be, the second questionnaire would be purely based with the retro bit of the soul/RnB/Jazz music, questions such as if they like this type of music and what conventions they would link it to this music genre as well as how they would link the music to the uses of gratification. The reason we have decided to do 2 different questonnaire's is so we get more information from the two fields as we cannot just generalise what the target audience would be for soul/jazz.

The questionnaire consists of 30 people, we made sure that we only used closed questions so that we get quantitative data which is easy to categories as we don't need to ask open questionas becasue we only need basic information about the audience. We decided to do an online questionnaire so that the respondents can take their time while filling out the questionnaire and not be rushed. This also means that social disarability and reseacher biased is avoided as we would have had this problem if we were conducting it in person.