COMMENTARY

This is our final commentary, we used clips from the music video and of the speakers as well as using the music in the intervals between clips.
Enjoy!

Final Commentary Video

Tom's evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our media product used a range of different conventions many of which we developed in our own ways to fit the music video and the effect we were looking for. Our song of choice Mcfly by Pinky Smooth gave us some trouble when we looked at what conventions we needed we found that the song and the band fitted two separate genres. While the band it’s self was heavy metal in genre the song’s genre is avant garde a much more experimental type of metal, so once we knew this we decided we would also have to try and give our video a much more experimental approach as well. However we still had to make sure we included recognisable conventions.
There isn’t a big well-established set of conventions for avant garde so if we really challenged them or not I cant say, however the idea of being experimental usually means trying to do something a bit different and unique and I feel we did accomplish this to the best of our abilities. We tried to use the lyrics of the song as a sort of guidepost to the video meaning we always had a link but in what way we took those lyrics was up to us. In the end we choose to carry a fairytale theme and spin it in a way we could work, this mainly transpired as a darker more comedic approach to red riding hood, one of the conventions we choose to avoid was the big aspect on band performance with out the resources we needed for this it would of caused us too much trouble and instead we decided a simple performance from the singer would be much more effective.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

With our ancillary texts we took the story of little red riding hood and pushed to express a fairy tale theme as the main backbone to our project, this gave us a big cache of material we could look at and also plenty of room to take it in any direction we wanted. This was vitally important for expanding from the simple story of red riding hood into something much more unique to our music video, digipak and advert with such a strong concept it was easy to link them all together. Using the idea of a fairy tale book as the cover of our advert and digipak we had the notion that the content was our story/video and it all linked together effectively.

What did you learn from your audience feedback?

Our Audience feedback played an important role in the perfecting of our video as well as understanding the strong points of our work we also discovered what sections weren’t so good and for what reasons. While most of it was very positive with a lot of praise to the linking of the story to the lyrics, their was a few points noted on the editing especially that we needed to improve this mainly ended up being improvements to the cut rate and the timing of the clips. We later also decided we needed to make sure the timeline of the narrative was more clear so when we moved between the performance and narrative sections it was clear and remained well structured.


How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

Music Video Evaluation - Laura

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our music video challenges the forms and conventions of a typical metal music video, although after researching the band further, we found that the band fits within a experimental form of heavy metal called 'Avant-garde metal', which challenges the heavy metal conventions. A typical metal music video would normally include a dark background with little lighting, dark clothing and normally includes a lot of shots of the singer/band performing the song. Our video challenges almost all these conventions as our video, although quite dark, is a more brighter video than a typical metal music video, as we used Little Red Riding Hood as our main theme. Thich brings a funner element towards the music video we wouldnt have had if we had stuck to the metal genre.


How effective is the combination of your main product  and ancillary texts?


We used a story book theme for both our music video and our digipack and magazine advert. I feel this was effective as it looks like the band has got a style or 'niche' similar to artists in other genres, for example, Katy Perrys 'bubblegum' style which is consistent throughout her work. I feel that the story book theme also works within the genre of 'Avant-garde metal' as it challenges the metal genre, but also fits within the genre as well.


What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Our audience feedback was very positive, alltough some members of the audience didn't understand the concept of the plot, for example, they didnt realise that we had tried to use past and present tense, between the verse and chours, we tried to change this after our rough cut feedback by putting title cards and footnotes within our clips however, some people still didn't understand after our final video.
The rest of our feed back was mainly positive saying the editing was professional and the lipsyncing was good.


How did you use new media technologies in construction, research, planing and evaluation stages?

We used new media technologies, such as Blogger, Final Cut, HD cameras, and Photoshop in all our construction stages. In our developing stage we Mainly used Blogger to plan and reaserch the video. We used HD camaras while we were filming the prelimanary videos and test shots, as well as the main video. During the evaluation and construction of the digipack and magazine advert we used Photoshop as well as Blogger.

Director's Commentary Planning

Questions

• What influences did we use and how did the genre of the music influence this?-Tom
• We used a fairy tale theme (Red Riding Hood) what was the plan for this and how did it change what sort of problems did we have adapting it? - Laura
• How did we come up with the concept?
• How effective and easy to use was the theme for the digipak material? - Tom

• How was our audience feed back what did it do to out video and ideas we had, did we stay with the same concept or did we feel we had to change things to achieve the effect we needed. - Laura
• What was the best bit of feed back we got?- Esther
• Talk about the shared images and style through both using fairy tale image while also keeping it abit darker- Tom
• Editing techniques and effects we wanted to use did use and stopped using.- Esther
• The different pieces of technology we used and how they effected what we wanted to achieve and any problems we had with them. (battery running out last moment)- Esther
• Costumes and props
• What parts played to the genre conventions and what parts were unique?

Presentation

• Voice over clips 
• Show test footage next to final film clips 
• Take turns talking/ maybe discussing with each other different points.
• Informal approach little scripted talking more expression of thoughts and ideas (more personal)

DigiPack

Music Video Evaluation- Esther North

• In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?- The genre of our music video song is classed as 'Avant- garde metal', also known as experimental metal. Its known to break the conventions of the typical metal genre, which is exactly what our video does. A typical metal music video would have a very dark and morbid atmosphere, usually with a fairly monochromatic and desaturated colour scheme, which link well with the lyrics, which also tend to be quite morbid and hell like. With our music video, we took this idea of a morbid storyline, but twisted it to turn into a fairytale setting. This goes well with  the avant garde metal conventions, as it takes a dark themed song, and twists it, mixing it with a fairy tale, a story for children which always has a 'happy ending'. Another convention of a metal video is the focus on the performance and the instruments from the band, rather than showing a storyline through the song. Again, we break this by having mainly storyline, although still some performance, but no instruments are shown. This also shows the conventions of an Avant-garde metal video.

• How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?- With our ancillary texts, we decided to express the theme of fairytales, as we had used the idea of Red Riding Hood within our music video. This furthermore expressed the avant-garde metal genre, through the large contrast in dark lyrics and the happy, fairytale theme. 

• What gave you learnt from your audience feedback?- Our feedback from the audience was very positive. They  thought our video was professionally put together and well edited. However, many of them were unclear of the plot. Our main aim was to have the performance shots as present tense, having the other scenes as flashbacks. However, we didn't portray this clearly as there wasn't any clear difference between the present and past tense shots.

• How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages? - Within the music video project, many different types of new media technologies were used. Throught the whole project, the internet, particularly blogger, was of high useage. We also used things such as google for research, lyric searching and ideas, facebook and myspace for contacting the artist, and youtube to upload our video and getting to know the song. Outside of the internet, other computer software was used such as final cut to edit our footage, and photoshop to create our ancillary products. We also

Music Video Evaluation - Paige

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

 The song we chose to do (McFly) is quite hard to attribute a genre too, but could be put under Avant-Garde Metal, although the band themselves (Pinkly Smooth) are a Heavy Metal band.

  Avant-Garde Metal is a subgenre of metal which is highly experimental which uses unconventional and unusual sounds, instruments and vocal techniques. 

  As such, when we created our music video we wanted it to have an unusual feel as well as being experimental and trying a project, that could potentially go very wrong. Luckily, it didn't.

  We set our music video to the lyrics of the song, taking inspiration from the words "Father" and "Wolf" which gave us the idea of Little Red Riding Hood. 

  Although we knew a childrens story wouldn't completely match the tone of the music and unusual vocal style, so we had to make our project seem a bit darker than a usual fairytale and get a performer who could live up to the rough vocal style.

  We used certain conventions with the lighting, e.g. we kept everything dark and moody to add to the atmosphere we wanted to create, and we used a performance alongside a narrative, which is often seen in Rock and Metal videos.

 How effective is the combination of the product and the ancillary texts (Magazine Advert and Digipak)?

 The Digipak and Magazine Advert uses is quite experimental due to it's colouring and styling which also conforms to the type of music video we created. The combination of the three items is interesting as they vary quite a lot in style. Our music video is very dark and moody whereas our Digipak and Magazine Advert are very colourful and almost Victorian in style, because of the font and background style. We chose this because it was quirky and Avant-Garde itself.

What have you learnt from the audience feedback?

  From the audience feedback we have learnt that though we created a good and very interesting music video, the plot of the story was lost on some of the audience.

  This is quite disappointing, as we tried to create markers and hold the story together through the use of titles at the beginning of the piece introducing the characters and photographs later on when the line "I'm still your father, child" is introduced to reinforce the relationship between Little Red Riding Hood and the Woodcutter.

  Although we did learn from the audience who watched our music video that they thought the story of Red Riding Hood was a good contextual choice and that it did indeed conform to the genre of music. They also believed our piece was very professionally done, as well as performed convincingly and edited well.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

Blogger, search engines, photoshop, final cut express, HD camera.

 

 

This is the finished magazine ad, we used the same background as the digipak, but used a different colour scheme as to inkeep with the background.

We chose the pea green colour because of the album name, the pink because of the lions colour and the yellow because it stood out and framed the image.

The photo was placed slightly to the side to make people follow the eyeline of Charlie (the wolf) and look at the release date. The bottom 2 lines are the names of three of the songs on the album.

Magazine Ad Planning

 This is the list of notes we created to know what to put on our digipak and advert, the long list at the bottom is the song names we randomly chose, including McFly.

Pinkly Smooth
In a Pea Green Boat Under The Sea
Coming: 13/12/11
Bucktan Records
www.pinklysmooth.com
5 STARS
“Amazing, inventive and…interestingly titled!” Kerrang
“In a Pea Green Boat Under The Sea, is one of the best albums of this year. Pinkly Smooth have done it again!”  Rock Sound

Alice in Blunderland
The Boy who Ate Cats
Mcfly
Uninspired
The Tale of Little Brian
Bush Woman
No Shit, Sherlock
Iron Dragon
Dom
King Thrushbeard
Esther Chocolate And The Previous Comment
Solitude and the Everlasting Pain.

Digipack and magazine advert ideas

We came up with the idea that our digipack and magazine advert would revolve around the idea of fairy tales.  The image to the left was what we decided to base our design around, using the blue background and red border, but removing the design from the middle and replacing it with text and images relative to our album.

Logo for the magazine ad and digipak

I created this image from a photos and screenshots we took on the day of filming.
I used photoshop to merge the images together and edit them in a "Sumi-e" style, as to fit a 'fairytale' convention.

Made up track listings

Alice in Blunderland
The Boy who Ate Cats
Mcfly
Uninspired
The Tale of Little Brian
Bush Woman
No Shit, Sherlock
Iron Dragon
Dom
King Thrushbeard
Esther Chocolate And The Previous Comment
Solitude and the Everlasting Pain.

Costume Ideas - Websites for costumes

http://www.joke.co.uk/adult-deluxe-little-red-riding-hood-costume~22232.html

Music Video Final

Our final cut of our music video

Analysis Of Music Video

• filter is the same throughout all the clips to keep the same effect throughout the video. Fades are also used to make transitions smoother in some of the clips, as well as jump cuts to link with the fast, jumpy pace of the song.
   
•  Could of redone the text

•  Conforms well with the genre, by having half narrative, half performance.
• Shows an intertextual reference from having Red Riding Hood. 
• Performance is well done, but lip syncing could of been slightly more accurate
• could of done more covers of angles in shots, as some of the shots had to be sneakily edited due to  fingers being in shots, mistakes in actintg etc
• The original idea was to have the story of red riding hood as a memory of the wood cutter, showing it as a sort of 'old film' type thing in the past tense, however, this isn't particularly clear as the performance and the narrative don't have a clear difference to show different tenses.

Feedback from other groups on our video

-Good relationship between the lyrics and the visuals but is a bit confusing sometimes
-The story is entertaining
-Red Riding Hood was a good contextual choice
-Good narrative and performance
-Performed very well and convincingly
-Conforms to the genre
-Mysterious look and feel
-Professional look
-Perfect filters, not too dark or too light
-Didn't feel like a typical fairystory
-Good use of close-ups for performance.

Correspondance between Group and Max

These are the messages between the group and Maxim who played our woodcutter.
There was indeed cake.

Rough Cut - Group discusion

This is a collection of thoughts and ideas we have compiled on our rough cut, this is to help us work out what has worked what needs changing and where to go with it next. We have had some feedback from other groups which has also influenced some of the ideas we have here.

Editing:
             We have to make sure we keep our style of editing fluent for the whole video ~ This means       that filter effects use the same settings and cover all the clips ~ We also could use transition effects to move between the singing scenes and the acting scenes in a more interesting way this might mean using a fade or similar effect to transition smoother.

We also need to cut more and avoid staying with one camera shot for two long and to help create a sync between the song and the video by cutting on the beat and making sure both the audio and visual come together well.

Camera:
             Our camera work seems to cover most of the basics and has an alround good effect however there is a few parts that can still be worked on this mainly means that when we cut between shots we take in account the effect different shots can have and cut acordingly. This should make sure there is good flow and we dont break continuity or confuse the audience by suddenly cutting to a strange angle.


Performance:
                     Our performance focuses around the story of little red riding hood we need to make sure that this is obvious and make sure the links are clear, while its not the same its important that the audience notice it as if they dont then that defeats the point of using it as a background reference to the song. This means we must keep a clear coherent focus on the characters to make sure it noticeable, while the singing sections wont really inforce this so much if used in conjuction with the performance it should help make the 3 characters The Wolf, The Woodcutter and Red riding hood easily recognisable.

Genre conventions:~

Rough Cut feedback from Tanya

Although this is very short at the moment, your ideas are quite clearly expressed.
In terms of what you can do next:

Make sure that all of the shots have a consistency of filter and effect.
You need to cover the track a couple more times and have at least one of the performances include a direct address to camera.
Cut back and forth through the lines more ie rather than cut at the end of the line, cut in the middle of the line or multiple times.

Review of P1-02 rough cut

P1-02 Rough Cut Analysis

Editing:

Faster cuts

More cuts especially for the last chorus, could easily incorporate shots from earlier choruses.

2^nd walk at the end should be cut out, and go straight to bed shot for continuity.

Needs to fit music better, cuts on beats etc

Perhaps filters added, contrast etc because lighting is a bit dull.

Filter added to walking shots/memories?

Shots between present and flashback should have a special effect/transition.

Mise en Scene:

Worked well, good choice of locations and props.

Costumes also well chosen.

No complaints about this.

Camerawork:

Some really good long shots and close up shots.

Not much movement but fits in with the song.

Camerawork would work better if the shots were cut and changed more often.

Genre Elements:

A lot of focus on the lead singer.

Good use of flashbacks to give context to the song.

Very sort of boy-girl song.. typical of genre.

Use of makeup created a nice effect.

Performance:

Lip-synching was good, well timed, singer obviously learnt the words.

Acted performance was good, fitted the genre.

Could have benefitted from more movement.

Could have done with seeing male character more to make us understand why she’s singing the song.

What and how to improve:

Improve last chorus with extra cuts and faster shots.

Filters on flashbacks.

Shoot more footage of male character for backstory.

ROUGH CUT

 

This is the rough cut of our music video project. Overall we are happy with it, although some further editing is needed and obviously, it needs to be finished.

Because we had to export it on a small resolution it plays a bit slower than it should, but we will be exporting in HD for the final piece.

Plans

This is our filming plan for various shots we need.

Use of narrative/abstract/performance in our video

Our video uses a mix of both narrative and performance cutting between different shots of both through out the video.

The use of narrative:

The narrative of our story is a different retelling of the story of red riding hood after listening to the song several times we felt like we could adapt the story of red riding hood into an effective narrative for our video taking some of the characters and adapting them and the story around them into something we could use to form the narrative side of our story. We also wanted a distinctive style that would give a good feel to the video and so had to make sure that our narrative was suitable for this, while there was some difficulty with this when it came to cutting the clips at a good pace keeping with the beat of the song but also allowing a good pace for the narrative to be expressed with out cuting so fast as to make it to hard to follow.

The use of performance:

We from an early stage wanted to make sure we included scenes of a performance in the video we wanted to also keep the performance linked with the narrative so choose to have our performer take the role of the woodcutter from Red riding hood who for our narrative was playing the role of father to Red riding hood meaning we had that important narrative link which kept the flow of story going meaning we were never distracting the viewer from the story. This also allowed us to lip sinc our song and use some more shorts that wouldnt have been suitable for the narrative sections. 

Filming schedule - Wednesday 19th October

12.30 Meet in reception and walk to the car

12.40 We'll set off to Milton Country Park

12:55 Arrive at Milton country park

13:15 Get lunch

13:25 Unload equipment  

13:40 Reach filming location 

13:50 Set up equipment and establish shots for filming

14:00 Start filming

15:30 Break from filming review footage 

15:45 Start filming again 

16:45 Finish filming review footage again

- If needed film more footage

17:00 Pack up and walk back

17:10 Arrive back at car

17:20 Arrive back at college

Contact With Milton Country Park

Contact With Artist - Facebook

Magazine Advert Research

For our music video we will also be creating a magazine advert to promote the release of our video to help understand what this requires we have been researching existing adverts to see what type of effects and techniques make an effective music advert.

 

These covers feature dark/black back grounds with white text over top listing details for the album such as where its availible for download and purchase, the album art is displayed on the left and takes up a strong proportion of the advert. The wording is quite standard listing who it features, who's album it is keeping it very basic and keeping the amount of words to a minimum the main focus is on the visual aspects the colours match and work well together ussaly quite dark with a white contrast on both the album and the advert are used this help attract attention to the details. 

 

For our advert similar styles with likley work well the song has a fairly dark story and it will be important to represent this. Since we are using the story of red riding hood being able to mix in dark red colours will also be a really effective way of creating a recognisable feel, our editing style mixes in strong contrast filters to really create a dark atmosphere but also to bring forward key colours. We can then focus on these colours to manage the look that can be represented across the whole project - The film, the magazine advert and the digi-pak.

Contact With Artist - MySpace

Auteur Study - Spike Jonze

Spike Jonze is an American director who has worked in many mediums such as Film, television and music video and is most famous for his work with the latter, having directed many videos for a range of different artists such as Fatboy slim, Daft Punk, Björk, REM, The Notorius BIG and Kanye West. His videos usually employ standard conventions but adds a really obvious visual twist one of the best examples of this is in the video Sky's the Limit by The Nototrious BIG.

We can see it uses alot of standard rap music video conventions but instead of normal actors he uses children instead giving the video a much more unique style setting it apart from other rap videos, this is the sort of feel that Spike uses for alot of his videos taking a standard genre and its conventions and mixing it up with one or two different aspects to create a more unique video that is distinctive and easy to remember.

Another well known video that has gained him a lot of recognition is his video for Fatboy slim's song Weapon of Choice which features the well known actor Christopher Walken.

Its a sureal/abstract performance that is both entertaining and unique mixing together aspects of comedy and expression, this is a slightly different style compared to most of Spike's music videos as it doesnt realy use any standard genre conventions and instead is a tottaly original piece however it still has a recognisable style following an abstract performance.

Test shot of Western Stand Off

 

It works when you click it. This is demonstrating an idea we had off a western stand off style shot.

Arron and Amar's Presentation

• The music video must be visually engaging
• The first 30 seconds are the most important, if they audience aren't drawn by then, they're likely to turn over
• pre-planning is important- pre visit locations and make sure they are suitable for filming
• cover the performance aspect 3 or 4 times, using different angles and shots
• shoot lots of footage so you never run out of things to include
• don't use a complete narrative
• schedule shooting
• Block
• complete a digital storyboard

Past Student Music Video Analysis

The visuals in the video link well with the music, as the jagged type movement fits in effectively with the speed and beat of the song. This is shown through a use of stop motion.
Assuming that the people in the video are members of the band, there are many close ups of the artists. There are no particular reoccurring motifs that the artists perform, however they could be perceived as developing a style of clothing, as they never change costume throughout the video.

2ND TEST SHOT

Basically, same as the first test shot, although this one shows skipping. Sorry it's sideways.

TEST SHOTS

No, they're not brilliant, but they are just ideas of how we could film the chasy scenes in our RRH music video.

This is how one of our chase scenes could look if filmed from the wolfs perspective.

OMG LOCATIONS

Although this isn't our actual location, it is very similar.

Music video - Influential videos

Below are a collection of videos that have provided inspiration and helped me to develop my own ideas in different ways using different editing techniques and visual styles aswell as showing different applications I can use to create my own video.

Paperhead - Fatboy Slim Right here right now: This video uses a lots filters to create a pencil and paper image, this along with some stop motion and cleaver overlaying creates a very abstract and artistic image that works well with music.

Here is a video showing how the pencil effect was created, It uses lots of overlapping layer to create its final effect.

Next is a video showing off one of the tools I hope to use MMD or Mikumikudance is a flexible animating tool that can be used to create and animate all sorts of different characters and objects, It is usually used for music videos and can produce very professional looking work.

Although Japanese in origin it has been patched to include an English version that provides all the same support as its original. A few of my favorite abilities is to create stages and set up any sort of lighting and camera movement you want, a down side is most of the character models are very stylized already so trying to use it in a way that can still be appreciated by a western audience will be hard to do. It also requires alot of trimming up in editing software to give a more suitable filter. I hope to be able to use this but it will be in limited amounts due to the amount of work required to look professional.

Another effect I would like to mix into my video is typography its a clean and visually engaging way of adding lyrics to a music video I think it should work well with some stop motion on a white back ground and will help to keep the viewer interested. However I don't want it to become too dominant as it could clutter the screen and be distracting aswell as abit disorientating if it moves too fast, keeping the words moving with the timing of the song is important aswell as choosing appropriate text font and images.

Storyboard Gif

We made this a animated gif since we couldn't scan the storyboard on.

P.S. IT PLAYS IF YOU CLICK IT.

Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf - Roald Dahl.

Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf

As soon as Wolf began to feel
That he would like a decent meal,
He went and knocked on Grandma's door.
When Grandma opened it, she saw
The sharp white teeth, the horrid grin,
And Wolfie said, ``May I come in?''
Poor Grandmamma was terrified,
``He's going to eat me up!'' she cried. And she was absolutely right.
He ate her up in one big bite.
But Grandmamma was small and tough,
And Wolfie wailed, ``That's not enough!
I haven't yet begun to feel
That I have had a decent meal!''
He ran around the kitchen yelping,
``I've got to have a second helping!''
Then added with a frightful leer,
``I'm therefore going to wait right here
Till Little Miss Red Riding Hood
Comes home from walking in the wood.''
He quickly put on Grandma's clothes,
(Of course he hadn't eaten those).
He dressed himself in coat and hat.
He put on shoes, and after that
He even brushed and curled his hair,
Then sat himself in Grandma's chair.
In came the little girl in red.
She stopped. She stared. And then she said,
``What great big ears you have, Grandma.''
``All the better to hear you with,'' the Wolf replied.
``What great big eyes you have, Grandma.''
said Little Red Riding Hood.
``All the better to see you with,'' the Wolf replied.
He sat there watching her and smiled.
He thought, I'm going to eat this child.
Compared with her old Grandmamma
She's going to taste like caviar.
Then Little Red Riding Hood said, ``But Grandma,
what a lovely great big furry coat you have on.''
``That's wrong!'' cried Wolf. ``Have you forgot
To tell me what BIG TEETH I've got?
Ah well, no matter what you say,
I'm going to eat you anyway.''
The small girl smiles. One eyelid flickers.
She whips a pistol from her knickers.
She aims it at the creature's head
And bang bang bang, she shoots him dead.
A few weeks later, in the wood,
I came across Miss Riding Hood.
But what a change! No cloak of red,
No silly hood upon her head.
She said, ``Hello, and do please note
My lovely furry wolfskin coat.''

Roald Dahl, Revolting Rhymes

This story has influenced us as it is the alternative version of the traditional Red Riding Hood story, which in turn helped us create our own alternative version.

MUSICAL PASSAGES

0-13  = Introduction
13-26 = First Verse
26-57  = Chorus
57-1:11 = Musical Break
1:11-1:23 = Verse 2
1:23-1:54 = Chorus 2
1:54-2:20 = Musical Break 2
2:20-2:32 = Bridge
2:32-2:45 = Chorus 3
2:45-3:20 = GIBBERISH

HEY LOOK. A MINDMAP.

Costume Ideas

Generic Woodcutter..... (possibly played by Maxim Thompson)

Generic Red Riding Hood.... (played by Esther North)

We haven't chosen a typical wolf costume, as we prefer the simplicity of the wolf mask, as well as the flexibility of actual clothing. 

Possible Location Ideas

For our filming location, we've thought of Milton Country Park. Its easy access and provides a decent location to film our forest scenes. There is also a Tesco fairly near by which gives us easy access to food and drink so that we may film all day without getting hungry.

Background Research - Little Red Riding Hood

For our music video we have decided to base it around the fairytale Little Red Riding Hood, so we had a look on the internet to find the original story so we could base our Video pitch around it.

Story Plan

BACKGROUND

We plan to recreate the story of Little Red Riding Hood, but from the Wood Choppers perspective.
We thought it would be a good idea to enforce a family link between RRH and the Wood Chopper to give the story context.

We plan for our story to be a series of flashback and present day scenes as the Wood Cutter (who is RRH's dad) remembers the day his daughter got eaten by a wolf. In the present day scenes, the Wood Cutter has gone mad.

STORY PLAN

(past) Red Riding Hood sets out from her home with the traditional basket of goodies and sets off into the woods.
(present) Wood Cutter is sat at home rocking in a corner lip-syncing the beginning of the song.
(past) Wolf is rummaging in the forest.
(past) Montage of RRH being stalked by the Wolf.
MUSICAL
(present) More WC lip-syncing with emphasis on the fact RRH and WC are related, use of "father child' lyric and photo showing RRH and WC together.
(past) More stalking and WC leaves his home with a lovely sharpened axe.
(past) RRH spots Wolf - western style I SEE YOU scene. RRH runs away, Wolf runs after her. At the same time, WC walks to forest.
(past) Chase is a bit more serious now, Wolf is closing in, RRH (crying?).
(past) RRH cornered. Very slow Wolf creeping in, we see WC behind them as Wolf lunges.

Pinkly Smooth - Mcfly video

Pinkly Smooth - McFly song lyrics

Why is this happening to me?
I've been back in time
And feeling ties are much too strong,
and theres a wolf inside.

[Chorus]
And lately he's been shaking all night,
and I wonder how he could have let you die.
Hold on strong and behold from the life you leave behind.
This could be catastrophic mind pollution,
what you had was real to me, ooh yeah.

Why is this happening again?
I've been ostracized.
And I cant seem to calm you down
Im still your father child, whoa, whoa

[Chorus]
And lately he's been shaking all night,
and I wonder how he could have let you die.
Hold on strong and behold from the life you leave behind.
This could be catastrophic mind pollution,
what you had was real to me, ooh yeah.

And oh not again,
this is not my memory,
taken from my friends.

And lately hes been shaking all night.
I wonder how he could have let you die

(random gibberish til end)

copied from: LetsSingIt.com

Music Video Pitch Ideas: Pinkly Smooth - McFly

Our initial concept idea for our music video to Pinkly Smooth - McFly was to have:

Childish feel
Fast editing
Slapsick
Filters to make it look grimmer
Meant to look 'B-movie' (cheap)
Spoof on real video
Green screen - maybe? (to cheap?)
Fancy dress, fairy tale
a Benny Hill style chase scene.

Story idea:
A take on Little Red Riding Hood showing the chase between red riding hood and the wolf nearer the end of the song the wood cutter comes in to save red riding hood at the end of the song red riding hood gets caught by the wolf.

Costumes:
Wolf Costume: Wolf mask, fur for hands, hoodie and trackies.
Red Riding Hood: Red Cloak, a dress, basket, red shoes?
Wood Cutter: Farmer shirt and dungarees

Location Ideas:
Forest (Ben's Woodland Walk)
A room of some sort (possibly?)

Music Award Show Analysis: MTV Video Music Awards

The MTV Video Music Awards were created as an alternative to the Grammy awards in the music video catagory.

Music Video Analysis: Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F) - Katy Perry

For our second video analysis we chose Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F) - Katy Perry

The music video over stereotypes the genre characteristics of a pop music video and and plays the video off as a movie by having credits at the beginning and end of the video. There is a strong relationship between the music and visuals as well as the lyrics and visuals, with the lyrics often played out during the video. The video uses a lot of close ups of the singer Katy Perry, and fits in with her other music videos which are also quite eccentric. There is frequent use of a computer screen to show images of the party shown in the video. There is also use of voyeurism between both sexes within the video. There are references towards other famous singers and actors which make cameo appearances in the video.

Music Video Analysis: Weapon of Choice - Fatboy Slim

For our first video analysis we chose Weapon of Choice by Fatboy Slim

The music video doesn't generate any similar characteristics towards the more conventional electric/house music videos. The use of lyrics and visuals are mainly contradicting although there are vague links between some of the visuals towards the lyrics which are often amplified. There is a exaggerated link between the visuals and the music, where the actor (Christopher Walken) is seemingly performing to the song. There is no obvious mention of the artist during the video, the whole video instead features around the actor. There is a strong use of mirrors in one scene which creates parallel images of the actor. There is a reference to film by using the actor Christopher Walken who often plays more sinister roles in movies such as Pulp Fiction and Sleepy Hollow, an is known for his serious characters, using him in this video was a break of usual convention, giving the video a more unique and entertaining appeal.

Goodwin’s Music Video Analysis

How to analyse a music video...
Andrew Goodwin writing in ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ (Routledge 1992)

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band).
2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).
3. There is a relationship between music and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).
4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style).
5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.
6. There is often intertextual reference (to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc).