Evaluation for the my music video

Kelly Davis is a new exciting video producer who is making her name in the video industry with her new video with Mumford and sons has really caught other artist’s attention.  This new video has gone straight to the top of the charts this week. During this video the studio was set low budget and not a lot equipment. With only using a one camera, a tripod and a green screen the video was a success.  When Kelly was in production for another music video we asked her about the progress to start off with Mumford and sons newest video.

“It’s a lot of communication with the artist to start off with as you always need to keep in mind of what they want and their style and how you are going to promote the band. However whilst considering the artist you are working with you also need to keep in mind what the trends are for music videos for example, Mumford and sons.

One other thing that you must avoid whilst making your videos is copy right and having permission to film certain people and certain places this can be difficulty if someone or somewhere refuses us to film them or a certain place because this can set the whole production back. This can because of relocating the scenes and changing the storyboards and it can also create and issue for the actors/artist as they might not be able to get to the new location and can cause time issues of when you can film.  

With copy right this will be with in showing companies or even products that we do not have permission to advertise in our videos. So this will be avoiding things in our shot however we didn’t have that issue as we only needed to film in a field and in a park.
 From what we can see from Kelly and her efforts with the artist she really takes in the consideration towards the message that Mumford and sons wants to put across and focuses on the artist and their true style and their passion for creating music and art.

We were curious on how Kelly presented her work to the band and what was she thinking when she first heard the song.

“The way that I presented my work to the team and the band was a story board to show my overall thoughts like the location and the characters and the story line. I also showed story boards of what wanted and how the video would look these were simple and basic but it had a good idea of shots that we were thinking of using.”
When in the studio with Kelly we also discussed how she was going to get the song to appeal to the audience Kelly said, “ I decided I needed to research the fan base that the group already had and discovered majority where teens and people in their early twenty’s. So I had my target audience and the way I decided to advertise and show the video to the world was through social networks such as Facebook and YouTube ” Well that is the best way in today's society as most teens will spend most of their time on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler and YouTube. Facebook is one of the most used social network sites and YouTube is one of the most viewed for music videos and gaming networks. This is how most music videos will probably be advertised as television has slowly started to become more of a traditional media compared to what it was few years ago. 

The inspiration that Kelly said that she used was the word wolf which was the name of the music video, she said this gave her the country feel and wanted to show this and wolfs hunt so she wanted the character to be looking for something or someone. Simple thought but made a lot of sense. In the video you can see a woodland teddy bear and was curious of why he was in the video.

“I placed the bear in the video as we needed someone or something to keep the mystery alive and something to create a signature about the video ”

One thing that caught the audiences eye was the use of the green screen and how it was used over a time laps showing the mysterious guy singing. We can see Kelly was going for the usual Mumford and sons sort of video but combined it with a narrative. I personally would say that this was a great way of respecting the artist usual art style and yet creating something that shows off our young directors skill. 

Pre Production - Cast and Crew

Cast and Crew

For my music video I will need the help of some friends for the crew and insuring that everything on set is correct. I’m hoping to have (Including myself) around 6 or seven people helping, however due to some scenes not having all the actors in the shot this should allow for less people on set meaning that I can manage a small group rather than organising a big group which can cause confusion.

Actor wise I will be having 2  in total, these being “The Girl” and "the mysterious guy". These actors when not on screen will be able to help behind the camera to deal with filming, lighting etc.

For my actors I have chosen;

“The Girl” as Myself

“The mysterious guy” as Tony Cash

I’ve decided to cast myself and Tony Cash as the main two characters as we know the most about the music video meaning we can play the part without having to make someone play them for us. Tony and I will be working closely together on the structure of the music video so that we have a better understanding of how we want the characters to be. I’ve also selected Tony as he has past experience in creating other media projects which can help especially behind the camera.

Having known everyone involved with the media project before actually working with them has helped massively due to knowing everyone’s strong points making it easier to assign people to the correct jobs. Working with a team that is new would have set back a lot of the possibilities with the music video, not only that but working with people new could make it harder communication wise as some people find it hard to work with new people. I hope to in the future improve on working with people that I don’t know, allowing me to gain more social skills that could benefit me when I work on another project. 

Pre Production - Production Plan

Production Plan

To ensure that the music video is done and completed by our deadline on the 28^th of March (Easter Monday), I have created a small production schedule outlining the basic structure of events that need to happen throughout the upcoming months. These areas will have other subsections (If needed) to outline certain days that individual things need to be done, that’s mainly focusing on filming and post-production.

Below is the basic Production plan, beginning at January 4^th to 28^th March.

Planning: January 4^th – to – January 31^st

This months will include all the planning that is needed before filming, things like storyboards, cast list etc. This will also give us time to conduct some research that can later help in the creative process, however creating our plan for our film is priority because of our near deadline.

Preparation: February 1^st – to – February 14^th

During the holiday I will be gathering up the entire cast and crew in order to prepare. This will include scheduling when filming days will be, what to bring, people needed etc. This will allow us to insure that everyone involved will be able to attend as well as collecting together our equipment ready for filming. Another thing is we can practise more complicated shots allowing for filming days to go smoother then trying the shots out on the day, not only that but this lets us change certain things in the story board that we discover we wont be able to do due to any reasons that may come up.

Filming: February 15^th – to – February 28^th

Filming will take place over two weeks, allowing for retakes, editing and fixing and errors we encounter. Filming over two weeks also allows for the cast and crew members to have breaks between filming and to recap anything they forget over the days that we don’t film.

Post-Production: February 29^th – to – March 20^th

After the filming is complete we can carry on straight into the post-production. Hopefully throughout our filming I’ll have at least a basic edited version to look at whist editing my final piece. Whilst editing I can look out for anything else that needs to be re-filmed and get it done in that same week. I will also go back through all my work to see if anything else needs to be modified to reflex my finished product.

Evaluation: March 21^th – to – March 28^th (Dead Line)

In the last two weeks everything to do with my production will be complete. These last two weeks I can look back at my work and decide what I did well and what I could improve upon. This also gives me a chance to make sure everything I have is complete.

If I follow this production plan exactly as I’ve set out I will be able to complete everything for my deadline and if successful I could be able to begin some weeks sooner to get ahead of schedule. As a reminder on when things need to be done I’ve created a calendar within excel from now to the dead line showing in a smaller version when everything needs to be done.

Pre Production - Writing Storyboards

Writing Storyboards

For my storyboard I will be creating two versions to better understand the structure of the scenes in the music video.

I’ll be using a traditional storyboard, using drawing to illustration shots with key details under the drawing. When doing the traditional storyboarding ill be trying to integrate a method that is used to frame shots called “The rule of third’s”. This is a three by three grid that is placed over the frame of a shot to split the images into sections within these sections. This gird allows the areas that need to be filled up, allowing a director to maximize his frames, filling each area with a character or a prop. Without this grid shots can look messy and things can look misplaced.

For my second method of storyboarding ill be using a program called “Shot designer”, which allows me to construct a scene from a birds eye view. In working from a birds eye view it can allow me to construct the environment around what ever is in the frame, this can be sued to place characters, show their paths, show items and things around them. With the program I can also use it to place where cameras and lighting can go, meaning that I can place the equipment that I want to use as well down.

Using both of these storyboard methods will greater improve how I see the areas that I film in, also what I want inside and outside the frame. Below are both my more traditional storyboarding and my storyboard on “Shot Designer”.

Pre Production - Target Audience

Target Audience

For our production I decided that it was best we looked at the target audience for our music video to better understand the genre that we’ve chosen. We started by looking through similar types of music and videos that had connecting connotations and themes. I also wanted to look at the bands other music videos to follow their style to then correctly promote them as they do follow certain styles and conventions in their music videos. It is a safe assumption to guess that the artists in the video have similar styles to other artist in the charts how ever have more of an american country feel. However there other conventions we might add  to our work might attracted different audiences.

Target audience for Mumford and sons:  

Age: 19-35.
Gender: Male.
Interest: watching films, social media and country music.
Employed: yes.

source:                                                              - secondary research.

Pre Production - Music Video Structure

Music Video Structure

These bullet points show the planning of the music video, similar to a shot list this will show the order in which I intend to shoot the music video, this will also contain some notes for ideas and shots I wish to add which I feel to be important to the music video.

The summary of my music video and what is happening:
So basically the girl in our video is supposed to meet up with with this guy but there is something strange about him he keeps appearing and then disappearing and the girl sees him and runs to a tree where she thought she saw him and goes there and waits. However he doesn't appear again but out of curiosity she heads out to look for him. As she is looking for him she wonders into a secret path way that she has never seen before she heads in to see if she can find him she sees him and continues to follow. As she reaches the bend of where she saw the guy go down she lose him but on the ground she see a bear with a jumper on the ground and it tell her where to go and then she dashes away to continue the search, thanking the bear as she leaves. She reaches another giant tree with the bench she see his guitar but not him but as she sits there waiting she sees a blurred shadow coming towards her and finally he appears and sits with her and they both disappear.

In the music video you can see that we added in performance sequences to represent the artist. There was also a few time laps sequences in the video but this was to represent Mumford and Sons style. They tend to use a lot of these in the there videos so I wanted to keep some of there traditional style of editing and music video.  

Pre Production - Organising Work

Organising Work

For my music video I plan to do a large amounts of planning before actually filming my music video. In order to fully set my ideas out I will first do mind maps, following some analysis of the chosen songs lyrics and then moving on to the details of the music video itself. To organise this work ill be using a template within the mac versions of word called “Notebook”.

This Template allows for your written work to be divided up into dividers separating up the work into named and coloured tabs. This allows me to write my planning in one coloured tabs, naming them accordingly to separate them up and then do the same for my film diary and my evaluation. In organising my work like this we will be able to fine my work easier, allowing me to jump to whatever I need to rather than scrolling through my work. This also allows for me to present my work clearly through each page, showing that not only is my work organised but it is presented in a way that is simple to read.

This Microsoft word template will benefit my work and my productivity whilst working on the project, organising each piece I do. This template also allows for the formatting copied in the document to carry over to other places such as my blog allowing for the document to be directly copied into the blog.