Feedback to other groups...

Once completed, we viewed all the music videos from our class. most of them were were not narrative based videos, many held simple ideas, we thought this was a good idea as many music videos are like this so they can stand re watching. groups 43 and 46 did this in particular. Each group clearly approached this project in a different way, some focused on lip syncing (almost exclusively) whilst others, such as group 48 did none, but had musical sync ups. our video was narrative based but we referenced the song in other ways, such as our timed speech bubble.

We are pleased that our idea stands out against the others. ours was the only linear narrative based music video. it was our aim to create a video that looked unique and different and we think we achieved this. it was aimed for our own age group, ranging for teenagers and we think we also reached this target audience because it is sinister and wacky and suits this age group with the wierd, comic based theme.

Animatic Version 2

Here is our final animatic of the full song. We will rely on this for when we film and it will be really helpful. We are very pleased that the music video plot looks successful just as an animatic.

Loren drew the animatic and merged it on final cut and edited it from the previous version because we realised how many more shots were needed compared to professional music videos.

preperation

Genre Conventions

Our artist Kid Harpoon defines himself as lyrical/Alternative. This is not too difficult as many contemporary artists define themselves as this today. Wikipedia defines it as: Alternative (also called alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative; known primarily in the UK as indie) is a genre of rock music that emerged in the 1980s and became widely popular in the 1990s. The term "alternative" was coined in the 1980s to describe punk rock-inspired bands on independent record label that did not fit into the mainstream genres of the time.
We will create our video with this in mind, which is why we think our mixture of animation and real footage is so effective, we will also be able to follow some of the more conventional and traditional elements of a video such as lots of shots with the artist (or in our case actor) and the images highlighting the unusual lyrics thus promoting the song whist giving the impression of going against commercialism, which this artist and his fans clearly values.

Performance/ Lip sync.

Before choosing our actor we asked him to show us if he would be able to lip-sync convincingly in our video, luckily he was sufficiant and is practising with Caitlin to improve. We are teaching him instead of finding someone who has more skill as he general apearance and natural attitude fits with the character in the song. We practiced our lip syncing with Caitlin and posted it on the blog, so our actor could get more of a feel of his task.

Camera work

whist thinking about our camera work, we decided to look at previous Kid Harpoon videos to see if their was a clear style, and if it would be appropriate for our video, we noticed it used a lot of long still shots, then contrasted them with sudden close ups and broken up with angle changes. we thought the bases of this (the unique contrast) would be appropritat with our video but we decided that a lot more moving shots would 'go' with the the song better, as their are few location changes and a lot of camera movement would give the feeling of being trapped and unable to get out as this song so strongly places empasise on.

Editing

Obviously, when editing caitlin and I will have more of a task because we have to edit in all the animation gabby and lauren will produce, in addition to all the standard footage cutting and lip syncing. We plan to use a veriaty of quick cuts and slow fades depending on the tone of lyrics, if it is a line such as 'whenyou know damn well you will survive' it will have a quick cut to the next shot, however when there's a line like 'its a few years on, and i'm still inside' we'll have a slow fade. we feel this interesting mix will add to the unique look of the video, and not solely rely on the animation for uniquity.

Pitch Feedback

As a group, we presented our pitch to the class and they offered some constructive feedback to help our video:

• it would be improved if we affected things that were in our real life footage, for example the audience willl be able to see a bush from the window, we could affect with anamation to make it seem sinister, like the song.
• look at more inspirational videos such as the car advert which combines the two nicely as well as the becks beer ad '4 steps' which also does this.

we will take this on board when continuing with our project

Pitch

For us we wish to compose a music video for Airplanes and Neon lights by Kid Harpoon.

Objective: To produce a music video with both elements of real life mixed with animation.

Loren - Animatic
Gabby - Make-up/ Costume
Daisy - Editor/ Props
Caitlin - Director

Loren lives in Bishop Stortford & Daisy lives in Brandon so the most appropriate location would be around Cambridge and Newmarket as they are somewhere in the middle.

We need:
An actor(s)
Location
Costumes
Specific Ideas

Inspirational ideas

Like the band Gorillaz, we have the basic idea to have animation with in the real life footage, because it would have relevance to the lyrics and the theme of the song, in the sense that it would reflect the strange images seen whilst under the influence of drugs.

Another Song by Kid Harpoon

Previous Work called Riverside. We like it as it quite sinister and relates to the lyrics.

Helloo...

This is group 45 with Gabby, Loren, Caitlin and Daisy.

After looking and listening to many tracks chosen by Rick.. we have eventually chosen aeroplanes and neon lights by Kid Harpoon

We are very interested in the song because it is wacky and superficial and many images can be linked with the lyrics to create a unique music video.

We immediately emailed the artist to inform him of our actions.


KID HARPOON KID HARPOON

myspace.com/kidharpoon

Date:
08 Sep 2008, 09:43

Subject:

Music Video

Body:
Hey Kid Harpoon,

This is Caitlin, Gabby, Loren and Daisy from Long Road Sixth Form College in Cambridge. We are media studies students and have chosen your track, aeroplanes and neon lights, to create a music video for our project.

Thought you ought to know that your songs are inspiring us to create this music video. We will send you a link once completed.

Your work is great. Keep it up! :)

Thanks.


We hope to use and share each others skills to create a successful video.

Blogs:
www.bebo.com/kid-harpoon
www.myspace.com/kidharpoon
www.kidharpoon.net
www.new.facebook.com/profile.php?id=698130267