LT - Change?

Kris and I have had a bit of an epiphony this weekend, a breakthrough. We've kind of decided that we'd like to change our idea, our song and our video idea. We've storyboarded about the first two and a half minutes of it and we think it'll really work, it's much more conceptual based than our other idea, with no performance shots. However we feel that the locations are much more accessible (one of them being right outside my house), there are less risks and problems to overcome (we won't need to take lighting outside, and so we won't have the problem of the weather) and that our video will be much more successful and creative than with our original idea.

Here is the basis of our second idea:

- The song is Pioneer to the Falls by Interpol, an enigmatic, quite eerie track with guitars and a lead singer. The dynamics of the song are interesting as it builds up to loud epic parts and in other parts you can just hear the singer with no backing instruments.

- The conceptual/narrative idea for the video follows a girl in a white room (possibly a squash court or a photography studio which we may have access to) with jagged lines on one wall. For some reason she is intrigued, tempted, fascinated and frustrated by the lines, she touches them but they cause her some kind of battle within herself.

- Other locations include an orchard, in which she follows the lines on the tree bark, causing her the same sense of frustration, and in which seems to get lost - maybe losing her mind? Also possibly a big open, empty field in my village which could be used to show her finally losing it.

- The video will cut between these two/three locations, showing her frustration, anger and fear.

- There could also be a section in which she is the one drawing the lines on a surface, maybe a concrete floor or something, as though she is trying to crack a code?


We reckon that we could do some really interesting shots with this idea and it would be much more interesting to shoot than our original plan. However, we don't know whether we're allowed to change it so late into the planning stage. We'll see!

planning review # 3 - CF

Well done - a creative pitch. Excellent choice of track, combination of narrative and performance is a suitable response, good use of practice shots to inform your idea, links made to primary and secondary research.

You do now need to think your idea through carefully in order to storyboard. This must be largely before Christmas.

Liz - excellent contributions to blog.
Chris - technical analysis is good, however you are still missing two product analysis.

pitch response

Generally, a good response from the group.
we had some criticism about our narritive for the video,which we need to think about more carefully.Our idea for intertectuality with sid and nancy was well recieved as was our noir theme. We think we are onto a winner!

LT - Focus Group

Over this weekend Kris and I did our focus group which consisted of five friends of the age 17 or 18 who were already fans of Kings of Leon and other bands within the genre. We played them our track, gave them a sheet of questions to answer in response to it and then pitched them our idea, asking for feedback. Here is an example of the questions:

Age?
Favourite band/artist?
1) In three words, describe how the song makes you feel.
2) In what sort of location would you expect the video for this track to take place? E.g. urban, rural…
3) What sort of music video would you expect to see for this song - performance, narrative or conceptual?
4) What sort of clothing do you imagine the people who sing the song to be wearing?
5) When you consume music videos, do you prefer to watch them with your full attention or are they generally something to put on in the background?
6) If you have any other suggestions about how we could improve our concept for the music video, please state them below.

From this focus group we have found out the following about our target audience:

• All five of people questioned said that an urban location would be suitable.
• Four out of five said there should be a performance element, three out of five said there should be a narrative element and only two suggested a conceptual video.
• The audience expectations of the band image is an 'indie' style, with skinny jeans, dark colours, casual style, shirts (and leather?).
• Four out of five said that they watch music videos mainly as background music whilst doing other activities.
• The group also collaboratively felt that using stop-motion would add another interesting element to the narrative part of the video, and that shooting in black and white would be a good idea. They also decided that although there should be a noir element to the video, it should not take over the narrative as this might just turn into a complete copy of an old noir film, which would not be an original or interesting idea. The group decided that just to reference film noir with some shot styles and use of black and white and noir motifs would be enough.