Music video Practice

Rationale post feedback sessions

Presentatio pitch

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storyboard

shot list

Title: Miss Cigarette

Author: Callum Black

Shot List

Page 1

1. Opening shot, stop motion with 'Miss' made out of cigarettes

2. Moving to 'Cigarette' coming into shot again made out of cigarettes, some smoke will drift across shot

3. Still Shot- close up of hand

4. This shot will be a hand sweep / fade which comes across the title of 'miss cigarette' and knocks the cigarettes off a table which comes into view an fall to the ground

Page 2

5. Black screen shot

6. Shot then fades into sky with clouds. This will be a low angle tilt

7. We then have a tilt down mid shot which shows two people a woman and a man

8. The shot then has the two people walking forward towards the camera and past it

Page 3

9.We have a urban london street. Wide long shot looking down the road

10. We have a split shot with view of the street and then looking down at the people

11. The two people are walking forward with the camera tracking backwards

12. Shot of off licence sign with sky and urban scene behind. This will be a tilting up POV shot

Page 4

13. Continued POV shot as the man proceeds to walk into the off license shop

14. Continued POV shot in shop with man behind the counter coming into view

15. Shot moves to hand on packet of cigarettes - close up

16. The shot then is of the man leaving the shop from the other side of the road, with cars passing on the road

Page 5

17. We now have repeat shot of the two people walking down the street with the camera in front of them

18. The shot fades into a band playing in a room the track which has been playing. It has three members, the two people seen so far ( man and woman) and another man we call 3. The shot then fades as they sit down and we then have a split screen change

19. The shot the has the original man and woman sitting on a bench in a urban park with bottles and cans on the ground.  The look is off then being drunk

20. The shot then moves to a full shot of them walking in a park together

Page 6.

 21. Shot of close up of a hand and arm beside a packet of cigarettes  as man falls over in POV

22. Stop motion shot with cigarettes moving over the hand in POV

23. Pull pack shot of woman helping man up and both start walking again, this then becomes a long shot

24. Mid shot of the couple leaving the park

Page 7

25 Split Screen/ frame shot as they walk the man pushes the girl into the other screen/frame

26. The man and woman are now shot walking on each side of a urban london screen with a mid shot

27. We have a fade shot and change of location to a cafe from the street. This is then a mid shot of the two men sitting having coffee at a table. On the table you have a packet of cigarettes

28. Stop motion shot with the cigarettes now coming out of packet and running up the mans arm and into his mouth. With surprise the man spits it out just as the girl walks past the window of the cafe and sees this

Page 8

29. A wide shot as the man who spat out the cigarette leaves the cafe. And goes outside

30. The shot is then a split screen. Like 25 and the man pulls the woman back into his screen which becomes a wide shot

31. We have a repetition of 7 of the couple walking down the street together in a mid shot

Recce Shots and Locations

The advantages of the outside locations is that there is an almost infinite variety available with similar characteristics. The images could almost depict any inner city landscape, apart from the red London bus. The graffiti art is symbolic of youth and street style and again there is a plentiful amount of it all around London.

The disadvantages are regarding the unpredictability of the English weather, particularly this time of year. The grey skies can often appear quite flat and dull which could have a detrimental effect on the vibrancy of the video. This is an issue as the artists I am making the video of are young  and energetic. In the Hip Hop/Rap genre the videos are usually vibrant. Some locations may require permission for filming, train stations for example.


The images portray the star persona of the band as they are taken from an urban inner city area such as Brick Lane, Clapham and West Norwood, all which have connotations relating to youth culture. Looking at the pictures they have links to graffiti, modern street art, but also every day locations like Clapham train station, Norwood High Street. This also represents the genre  of hip hop/rap due to the urban scene's that are a convention of this genre type

Digipak and Poster

The design for the digipak and poster uses original

photographs taken around London. Two of the

photographs represent an urban environment, focusing on graffiti art, which can be considered a young and urban art form. The other two photographs are blurred so that the figures could potentially be anyone. This goes against the clear images of the artist which is one of the stereotypical conventions.

Theoretical approaches in my music video.

One theoretical approach to my music video relates to the idea of post modernism which is the idea that in media there is nothing new, there is only ideas recycled and called new by being presented in another way. The theoretical  approach of intertextuality also informs some of my ideas for the music video, this is evident in the idea of referencing other medias. In my media production there are many intertextual references, one reference is to the film "Tsosti", directed by Gavin Hood. In the opening scene we fade into the title of the film using stencil type so that you can see through the letters. I was going to incorporate this into my music video during the chorus to the song to show some reference to the lyrics as the video plays behind the lettering.

Another form of intertextuality that I used was referencing the music video for BoB and Bruno Mars "Nothing On You". During the video as BoB walks down a street the film is shown frame by frame like a photograph, in my music production this technique will be a main focus of the video. I  used the idea of the walking down a street while jumping through the editing technique of cutting to jump to other parts of the narrative. Linking into this is through the music video for the band Cage the Elephant and their song "Ain't No Rest For The Wicked". They use a different techniques to film a character walking down a street, this is through the use of green screen to place images within the frame.




Intertextuality is also demonstrated through the use of stop motion. Referencing the music video by Plan B, "No Good", where it is filmed completely in stop motion and items move around the room and over the singer. I am going to employ this technique during the scenes where the camera cuts away from the main narrative to a variety of other cut away scenes.




I aim to subvert the genre of Hip Hop/Rap which usually objectifies women in the lyrics and through visuals. In my video I am using the idea of female empowerment by having the female character shown in a more dominant way through the mise en scene, performance and cinematography (close ups, low angles). Although the song is recognisable as being from the Hip Hop/ Rap genre, the lyrics do not conform to stereotypical lyrics, they are subverted mainly through the use of adolescent humour.

The lyrics of the song focus on the themes of addiction and obsession. This can either be seen through the physical representation of being addicted to cigarettes, this idea is extended through the narrative which parallels the idea of being emotionally and physically addicted to one woman.

Typography

Through the examples to the left and below, we denote that the font across all of the album covers are similar; with clean, straight lines, with bold colours that stand out from the background.

Throughout all the example album covers, their fonts are usually the main feature. On the Jay-Z, the hit collection, the album is light grey, with the album title in small white writing in the same font, whereas the artist's name is in large, bold, dark grey writing in the same font, this has connotations relating to the importance of the artist in the hip hop/ rap scene. It promotes the idea of Jay-Z being so big in the hip hop/rap scene that his name alone is the foremost selling point of the album cover even without an image.

Within my digipak and poster I am going to conform to these stylistic conventions, they will be simple, with the clear name of artist, album name, date of release, company. This is due to my subverting many of the codes and conventions of a hip hop/rap music video. It is better to have a mixture of conforming and subverting a genre as it makes what you are subverting more obvious and powerful.

music video pitch

Define Target Audience

•For the primary audience the general age would be 16-20, black/white, male. Relating to the social class, through the A,B,C1,C2,D,E system, the primary audience would be an E due to them being students, in lower and higher education without jobs or part time jobs with low earnings,

•For the secondary audience the general age would be between 12-15, black/white, with the same social standing due to them being still at school. This would apply to this audience due to the type of genre - pop, hip hop, rap are all popular genres and can apply to all ages. However the image I am creating of the band is to apply to a younger audience, though for this song there may be a higher age due to the content and possibly for commercial reasons, to sell to the the buyers market. The nationality of the secondary audience is American in order to break into a big lucrative market in the music industry.

 The hobbies the target audience would be studying, clubbing, music ,DJ, dance, into fashion, technology based socialising, team sports, sociable, gratify, skateboarding. with links to both audiences, there would be a large emphasis on clothing, street fashion.

Mood board;

genre study

The genre of my band is hip hop, rap and pop and this has to be shown through the music video and the digipak. All of these genres are popular genres and there are many stereotypical codes and conventions that allow the audience to identify the genre. Though pop is a very wide genre, and literally means popular music, this genre includes artists like Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Justin Timberlake etc.  The hip hop/ rap genre has many stereotypes in their music videos and digipak's;

-Conventions and Codes for hip hop/rap video

•                Male artists tend to perform to camera, interacting with it as though singing to the audience

•                Female artists tend to combine performance to camera with performing to an ethereal 'other'

•                Displays of wealth are featured: fast cars, expensive clothes, jewellery, homes, lifestyles

•                Sexualised dancing is perfomed by women

•                Colours are often bright, in costume, lighting and sets

•                Daylight, rather than night, is frequently used. Where night is used, it is contrasted with bright interior shots

•                There are frequent close-ups of artists performing

•                Females are objectified: use of fragmentation, slow motion etc

•                Costumes worn by women are clingy, revealing and sexualised

•                Exaggerated dance moves are performed by women to accentuate the female form and their sexuality, and by men to accentuate their virility and masculinity

•                Narrative themes of infidelity, are often played out in a narrative performance by the artist

•                Setting is frequently urban, or suburban, and often identifiably set in and around london

•                Editing is often paced to the beat of the music track

•                Low-angled shots emphasise the dominance of male artists

•                There is use of reflection/silhouette/shadow

•                Studio sets are minimalist, using monochrome colour schemes

•                Sets can be lavish, intended to represent a luxurious home

•                Strong backlighting is used to radiate around the artist

Cars are often used as sets for performance

Many of these codes and convention are inaccessible due to budget. My video will be a conscious effort to subvert many of these conventions, this will be initially evident through the use of a different video narrative structure, where the woman is more empowered as she leads the male character. Though subverting some of the conventions of a stereotypical hip hop/rap video, some conventions like the location, urban and suburban,  and close ups of the performers will be retained. The artists music is going to appeal to a young audience. The video will reflect the underlying humour that is incorporated into the lyrics which is not stereotypical of the hip hop/rap genre.  

-Conventions and codes of hip hop/rap  for a digipak

• dark and dull colouring throughout the digipak, this colour is very recognisable for this genre
• there is stereotypically an empowering picture of the artist on the main panel that shows power through the camera angle, low angle close up usually, or through wealth, cars, houses as the backdrop to the artists picture and quite often with reference to drugs, especially marijuana   
•  the font that is usually used in this genre of digipak are fonts that captures the driving rhythms of hip hop music in the gesticulating forms of this dancing pairs of typefaces, HipHop Demi and it's syncopated twin, HipHop Inline or clean straight letters, with bold colours that stand out from the background.
• the backgrounds can either be expressions of wealth or gritty urban locations. An example of the latter would be the cover of lil wayne's cd

institutional research

For my media production, music video, digipak and posters the band that I am creating around the track that has been selected is Rizzle Kicks with their song ‘Miss Cigarette’. The band that I am creating will be signed to an independent record label, the independent label that my band will be connected to will be TVT record, which has many recognizable acts signed to it, such as Pit bull and little Jon. 

I chose this record company due to it being a record label that is 'artist friendly' but also because this record label produces a similar genre to the music that my band produces, hip hop and rap. Although being an independent recored label, this record label has produced 25 Gold, Platinum and Multi-platinum releases. This shows that being an independent label is no bar to being able to produce high selling albums. Another reason is that it has links to other independent record labels such as 'The Orchid'. Though the band that I have created is a British band, the label is American, I have done this due to the fact that I have picked a popular genre mixed band, but also there is more revenue opportunities in the USA. TVT Records recently renewed its long- standing agreement with QTRAX and is the first label to launch musicon, the ad-supported P2P service. This allows fans to download tracks from top TVT acts like Lil Jon, Ying Yang Twins, Pitbull, Sevendust, Just Jack, and the Cinematic for free. The download is legal and artists, label and songwriters are able to be paid.


The reason I selected an independent label for my band is that I did not want my music to be associated with the corporate mainstream side of music. I wanted my music to be reflective of the more independent, 'freer' and youth based aspects of the Internet. By avoiding the controlling  and financially motivated aspects of the large corporations that have historically controlled the music business my band has more autonomy in creative and financial terms.

Digipak and poster research

This is the digipak for Lady Gaga's album 'The Fame', the typography is  a clear, block letter font, this was chosen to emphasis the image of the artist. The red on black background contrasts well and makes the artists name very clear. This has connotations relating to the artists star persona, through the rule of thirds we can identify that the artist is located in the centre of the frame; this is continued as we look at the other frames of the digipak, there are 8 frames of which 7 include the artist, this connotes the importance of artist. Looking at the mise en scene, through costume, there are links to ideas relating to female empowerment, Lady Gaga looks in control of her image as she stares out from the page in one of the images at the viewer. However the costumes, the latex suit,  and stances, that emphasis and exaggerate the female form, are ones that seemingly invite the male gaze. This creates a tension between inviting the gaze and being made aware of looking. The repeated use of the artist's image, a variety of shots ranging from closeups to long shots, and the spacing, ensures that Lady Gaga's image is always in view. In all the pictures there is only her in the picture with a mainly dark backdrops but with the shots of vibrant red, purple and blue. The colours do not overpower the artist's image which is symbolic of the Lady Gaga image where she is always displayed 'centre stage'. This digipak represents the genre, one way this is achieved is by using one of the conventions of popular music digipaks. The use of colour schemes that include prime colours, grab the attention of the audience, which is one of the main points of digipaks. Another way in which the pop genre is represented is through the repeated and multiple image use, this is a convention in similar pop music digipaks, for example the digipak for Rihanna's album 'Loud'.

Rihanna's digipak is similar to Lady Gaga's 'The Fame'. There is a clear use of the primary colour red, which has connotations of sex, and also almost all frames are predominantly filled with the artist. Though the difference is that Rihanna's has a conceptual feel due to the disc and three sections of the digipak including roses, which have connotations of romantic love, the use of red in Lady Gaga's digipak have no such connotations. Through the use of close ups and the rule of thirds we see the importance of artist, which also has links to the mise en scene, The costume through use of the red incorporated with lipstick and hair dye links Rihanna to the red roses and gives the digipak a more edgy sexual feel, counteracting the 'romance' of the roses. The close up and performance, seen in the facial expression, makes the audience almost feel an emotional connection to the artist, this has connotations to the genre of R&B, which conventionally aims to work on achieving an emotional response.  

Digipak amd poster research

there are 15 main conventions of a music video digipak;

-The name of the Artist
- The name of the Album
- Track-listing (include bonus extra's such as 'behind the scenes' and/or 'making of' features)
- Website and Myspace addresses
- Record Label branding
- Pictures of the band members or relevant visual imagery to sell the band (must be a different image to those used on the magazine ad) and it must be manipulated in some way (effect) or symbolic to the band or music video.
- Price
- Website
- Credits
- Recording information, producer, where it was recorded and when
- Who wrote the songs
- Logo
- Barcode
- DVD logo
- CD logo
- Website banner


another convention for digipak's and posters would be a recognizable image that used across the media production advertising, poster, digipak, CD, DVD. also through out the media production there would be stereo typically be a simple colour theme usually with connotations to the  genre and with possible connotations to the bands previous work. a connotation that the Digipak and poster are to reinforce the band and artist's image, through star persona, costume est. and also promoting there production team.


The digipak and the poster are created to 'reach out' to the target audience. This is achieved through performance imagery, band pictures and/or symbolic pictures related to the band that all appeal to the target audience. This is also linked to the advertisement of the album/band through the poster, this could have the stereotypical colours that are seen on music digipaks, mainly primary colours. An example would be The Clash CD cover, as shown below. There are uses of the primary colour of red, this is bold, has connotations to rage, passion, hate in the way that it is used, which has links to the band itself and the target audience for this band. Also through the conventions of a digipak there is a performance picture, this is appealing for the target audience.

The Clash, 'The Singles'

It follows the conventions of using bright primary colours are used here. The pictures on the digi pack are band performance images and graphic photos. These show the kind of images which our target audience are interested in looking at. It is also similar to the other digipaks discussed as they also included pictures of the performers and performances. It also includes a poster which again tells us that our target audience like to receive posters and other things along with their CDs. Like all conventional digipaks it includes track listings and images.

Ian Dury-'reasons to be cheerful'


The package covering is a cardboard sleeve over the CD case. This allows for more images to be used and more information. The matte effect reflects the raw and distinctly 'unglossy' type of music that Ian Dury makes, this effect also makes it stand out from the generally glossy CD covers. Few colours have been used, the name of the CD is picked out in bright orange, which contrasts with the grey. This contrast make the title stand out and eye catching. The fonts used are inconsistent, capitals are used arbitrarily and the fonts are mainly sans serif, all which reflects the typically unfussy and gritty image of punk.The photographs featured in the digipak, including the front cover, are of the star, Ian Dury, in a gritty, urban setting which reflects his working class roots. The band’s logo is also featured. The digipak adheres to Ian Dury’s sensibilities, it feature’s a quote from him and the sleeve notes are written by comedian Phil Jupitus.
This digipak appeals to the target audience because it follows the conventions of punk styling and it is a more realistic reflection of real life.  The target audience are more likely to be interested in real life rather than glossy fantasy.

The CD cover, that was in the band's digipak, is a style which I may incorporate into my own digipak. The simple use of low key tones, black, white and greys and through the mise en scene, locations, gives it an urban feel, it also gives a working or low middle class feel to the digipak.