Band Shoot Plan

Our latest idea is to include a band into our video which will be 'wrapped' around the narrative. We plan to shoot this in the coming weeks so therefore a plan is needed for our shots. I've listened to the song and picked out the individual instruments and from there have pinpointed the shots we need.


0:00-0:07 - guitar picking and bass drum


0:08 - keyboard intro


0:22 - acoustic guitar and vocal intro


0:31 - bass guitar slide


0:38 - backup vocals


0:53 - close of drums on chorus intro


1:27 - close up on keyboard


2:57 - (breakdown) close up of lead singers face


3:12 - drum intro to chorus


3:38 - backup vocal

Laura Mulvey

Laura Mulvey

Laura Mulvey is a British film theorist famous for her essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, which introduced her theory of the ‘male gaze’

The concept of gaze is one that deals with how audience views the people presented. She made the claim that film audience has to ‘view’ characters from the perspective of a heterosexual man. She also explained how cinematography is used and how the camera is used to show the curves of a women’s body. This relegates women to the status of ‘an object’.

‘How could Mulvey’s theory link to your project?’

In our music video we plan to show relationships. This means we have to represent a man and a woman and represent them in a way which is recognisable to the audience. We now have to choose how to depict our characters and give them their own personalities within a relationship.

The image above is a classic example of how the camera lingers on the curves of an actress who is told to act this way. She's also been put with a stereotypically male job of fixing a car which some men may find attracting as the women is wearing tight clothes, loop earrings and has her hair down. Not exactly your common overalls....

First Stages of Planning

Now with our song chosen - 'If I had a Heart - Andy Burrows', we can start planning what types of things we want to put in the video and chose the features we want to include.


The song is about relationships and how they can be complicated. It tells us how on many occasions no matter what decision you make you can often look like 'the bad guy' and be known as heartless even though you meant no harm or made mistakes. You then start to feel like maybe you have done things wrong and start blaming yourself for the decisions you made. I think we can tell the story well in our music video showing a sequence of relationships which have had bad break-ups.


Below our bullet points to outline ideas:

• We will feature the singer.
• We will have two main models, one male and one female who will re-enact a broken relationship.
• We will involve instruments in some sort of way.
• We will have mixed settings.

Responses to Copyright e-mails

Wednesday 14th September -


So far I have had one reply from the e-mails I sent to record companies. This was from 'Visible Noise' who represent Lostprophets. This was their response:


Hi Bradley,

Thanks for your e-mail. Could you please let us know exactly what the music would be used for, so that we could pass it on to somebody relevant?

Many thanks,

Joachim D. Nawrot
Digital Manager
Visible Noise


I responded a day later with: 


The music would be played over the top of video recordings which we (me and my partner) are going to record by ourselves in the form of a music video. It would last the length of one full track and will be submitted to the exam board for marking.

Many thanks for the reply and I look forward to hearing back from you.

Bradley Crack, Tavistock College.


However, Visible Noise failed to get back to me so on Monday 19th September I sent them another email to prompt them (which due to unfortunate circumstances got deleted so no copy).


Still with no answer I have given up effort to pursue them. This comes after great news that my group partner recieved. She recieved an email given her permission to use a song by Andy Burrows called 'If I had a Heart' which we are confident we will use unless we recieve any other replies. This is the email Kerry received.

This ends our chase of permission for a song and should kickstart planning for our music video.

Initial Ideas

The first step of making a music video was to decide on what kind of genre of video we wanted to make based on our song choice. Me and my group partner both agreed on a music genre based on 'indie' music, whether this be more upbeat or solemn. To get a greater idea of what we were after I looked at how different videos were formed in that genre.

                                                                                    

Mumford and Sons are a heartfelt band who use a range of tempo's to create soulful music. To match their image, the video uses a very 'rustic' feel which I feel works well. However, instead of just having shots of beautiful scenery, the video is concocted by using the chorus as a place to add excitement by adding the leaves being blown onto the band members. This creates a dynamic and shows the band as youthful and energising whilst still remaining soulful and as respected musicians.

The Pigeon Detectives are an upbeat band who attract a lot of attention from teens and young people. I feel that this is reflected in this video by using 'free-running' as the main article. The video is also abstract with the use of the costumes and bright colours and the setting takes the characters past graffiti and into an abandoned warehouse. It's a simple but effective idea and in someways uses comedy features. It has also shown me how linking the video to your target audience is equally important with music videos as it with film-making.

 Lostprophets are an alternative rock band who like to have fun on stage and create a brighter vibe opposed to a dark one. This creates a chance to make music videos 'gimmicky' as seen in 'A Town Called Hypocracy'. I think the younger audience would connect with the humour of the video but also relate to the old school television format that they use. This involves using lots of codes and conventions of classic children's shows including the background music, the tone of voice used, the coloured text and the costumes, make up and hair.

Copyright Issues

With the view of creating a music video, our first challenge to tackle is the copyright issue. Copyright prevents us from using music from record labels without permission to do so. This means we have one of two options; either use un-copyrighted music or somehow seek permission to use the material we desire. After finding the un-copyrighted music somewhat uninspiring we decided to look for permission to use a copyrighted track. This meant tackling the record companies. Below is an example of an email I sent to Fallout Records to seek permission to use the band ‘The Rumble Strips’ in our video.

To Fallout Records,

I am a student currently studying Media Studies at A-level and am looking for your help to enhance my grade. The exam board of 'OCR' are keen to avoid copyright and out of respect I felt this email was necessary. I would like to use any music that you may be able to give us, with your permission we would be allowed to submit this which would help with our grades. A band we potentially may be interested in are 'The Rumble Strips'. However, any potential content you could grant us would be a huge help.

I look forward to your reply

Yours sincerely,

Bradley Crack, Tavistock College

I also sent emails of this type to record companies such as ‘The:Hours’ and ‘Visible Noise’.


I hope that I will receive replies soon and that I get good news. If I don’t get any replies I may have to look at other avenues of tackling the problem and I’m looking at setting the cut-off date to around Wednesday/Thursday the 14/15^th September before changing my ‘tactics’. My group partner has also sent her own emails to other companies.