Original Video Ideas

After studying and analysing the lyrics of the song for the first time, these are the ideas which we originally generated:

• Narrative based
• There's a metaphoric meaning to the majority of the lyrics, but we will portray them literally eg. "the boy who's lost his marbles" will link to a shot of marbles bouncing and rolling away.
• Will be shot in a train station, relating to the lyrics of the song.
• Going to dress up as different characters or find actors to play them.
• At the start of the track, we will edit the shots to flash black like you are blinking when the song claps, matching the music to the visuals and amplifying the music.
• Shot as though it is her point of view, you never see the artists face.
• "Boy with a smile thinking about Marie 'cos he caught her in the shower last night accidentally"- shot of boy smiling and thought bubble coming from him with video of person in shower.
• Beginning shot- "There's so many people at the station"- shot from behind of artist sat on a bench with people walking past. Speed up during editing to give effect of everyone moving very fast.
• End shot is similar, but edited to slow down rather than speed up. People eventually disappear and she is left sat there alone.
• Zoom into her head as though viewer is going into her thoughts.

Album cover idea

• Our music video incorporates a number of shots where the artist is leaning against a wall singing, therefore I thought we could use such a pose on the album cover, creating coherence between the two.
• I found an image of artist Diana Vickers, who striking a similar pose to what I have in mind. Using the influence of this image, we could re-create a similar look for our own artist Jose Vanders. The relaxed pose appears endearing and not over manufactured, which would reflect the easy listening style of Jose Vanders music.
• I edited the image on photobucket, as though it was the photo we had taken of our artist and experimented with different effects and fonts. To the right is the result of this editing and a possible idea to use for our album cover...
• By layering the image I was able to make it black and white, yet the artist appear in colour. This makes them more prominent, and allows for the colour in the image to come from them and their clothing, conveying them as the brand.
• The distinct font appears quirky and easily recognisable, as well as quite playful, which would reflect he youth of our artist. The colour on black and white effect here also makes the artist name and album title more prominent.

Ancillary Tasks

We have decided to produce a digipak and digipak advert for our ancillary tasks.

Original ideas:

• We must develop a theme throughout the three products (music video, digipak and advert) to create a sense of coherence and branding. We will do this by using the theme of a train station. For example, we plan for the artists name "Jose Vanders" to appear as though it is a station sign, by imposing text over an image we will take of a sign.
• To ensure this coherence is created, we will decide on a distinct font for the artist name, which will be used throughout the three products as a form of identity for the audience.
• We plan to use an image of the artist on the front cover of the album to follow the conventions of an album cover, as when researching similar existing products (young female artists) such as Kate Nash and Pixie Lott they both feature an image of the artist.
• On the back cover of the digipak, there will be a track listing, and there may be a possibility develop the play of words of "track" with the train theme.
• We will use an image of the album cover on the advert to allow easy recognition of the artist for the audience, as well as making it easier to find the album in a store. My research showed that album covers are often incorporated into the advert for an artist, such as Florence and The Machine and Ellie Goulding. Therefore, we have decided to follow this convention.

Developed Storyboard

After developing a rough storyboard outlining the narrative of our music video, we produced a more detailed storyboard, focusing closer on different shot types, camera angles, transitions and timing. From researching other music videos, it is evident that hundreds of shots are used throughout, with a minimum of at least 2 camera angles being used for every similar shot eg. in Eliza Doolittle's music video "Pack up", when she is singing on the bus, 3 different angles are seen of her singing in the same position. We have therefore followed this through into our own video, constantly using different shot types and camera angles, especially in the scenes of the artist singing, as otherwise this could appear quite static.

Below is a copy of our second storyboard...

Draft Storyboard

After researching into existing products, we began planning our own music video. To begin the process, we developed a very rough story board which simply outlines the narrative of the video, which we then developed focusing more closely on shot types, camera angles and transitions. In our original storyboard, we planned the timings for each section of the video, which would then help us when developing it into different shots.

Below is a copy of our original storyboard...

Music Video Song Lyrics

Analysed Song Lyrics (Goodwin's Theory)

View more documents from Hitchin Girls School.

Our Artist

We have chosen an unsigned 20 year old female singer called Jose Vanders as our artist, who is a singer-songwriter and pianist from London. Her relatable character and easy-listening music interested us in her and her work, leading to us selecting one of her songs to develop into a music video. She has recorded a number of tracks, our favourite being "Faces Going Places", due to its upbeat tone and the creativity which the lyrics lead to.

After agreeing on her as her artist and the track we wished to use, we contacted her to request permission to use the song in our video, to avoid infringing copyright. Below is a copy of the e-mail we composed and sent to Jose Vanders.

G324 Advanced Portfolio Coursework Brief

Produce a promotion package for the release of an album, including a music promotion video and two of the following:

• Website homepage for the artist
• A digipak for the album
• A magazine advertisement for the digipak