Music Video Timeline

Revised Timeline

0:0- solo artist playing in a wooden room with posters on the wall/ peeling wallpaper, wide shot – black ‘n’ white

0:01-0:05- still playing

0:06- cuts to the bedroom scene, wide shot from behind. Woman at dressing table, unmade bed and broken bottle on floor

0:08-0:09- man slowly walks forward and begins to sing, continuing with shot from behind, move to mid-shot of the top of head and shoulders.

Josh T. Pearson Performing

0:10-0:11- slowly walks around, camera moves to wide shot from left side (opposite side to woman at table)

0:12-0:13- panning round room, following man

0:14-0:18- continuation of above, camera hovers on dressing table revealing the skull ala ‘All is Vanity’

0:19-0:22 – then continues to follow man, he reaches door

0:23-0:26- exits from room, maintaining wide shot then zooming in on door handle as he leaves

0:27-0:31- films through key hole following his back and then cuts to performance element.

0:32-0:35 –performance element , wide shot

0:36-0:39 –performance element, zooming in on face

0:40-050 – close up of face, now zoom in through eye as though looking into his memories (Busted year 3000)

Such Items Adorn The Bar Counter

0:51-0:53 – cut to next scene, following distorted eye shot into dive bar, wide, establishing shot. From this an abstracted skull can be seen in the lights above the bar, with bottles on counter creating teeth.

0:54-0:56 – camera walks slowly towards him at bar, skull still visible

0:57-1:00- he is at bar, a whiskey is poured by barman and past to him, now on mid-shot, low lighting creates atmosphere paired with black and white.

1:01- 1:05- close-up shot of his reflection in whiskey

1:06-1:08- zoom out to him sprawled on bar, despairing and drunk

1:09-1:12- he gets up and staggers away

1:13-1:15- we see, through a wide shot, shot from behind standing at bar as he leaves through adjacent exit.

1:16-1:21- performance element, returning out of eye, wide shot of him singing, smoke trailing up from cigarette

1:22-1:25- follow smoke up, close up shot to ceiling

1:26-1:28- distortion of smoke takes to next scene

The Forest

1:29-1:31- next scene opens black then emerges into dark  street

1:32-1:35- shot from in front, camera follows him, wide shot staggering.

1:36-1:41- he lights up cigarette, close up of lips, lighter

1:42-1:44 – distortion on camera creates the effect of two eyes, zooming slowly out, set against wall, manipulation of smoke in after effects to create cranium.

1:45-1:46- remain on this shot

1:47-1:49 – zoom out, he walks through smoke and camera hover, mid shot on the broken smoke rings

1:50-1:54- cut to next scene, filmed from behind maintaining sense of following him. Establishing shot of woods, late evening, can film in day and adjust in editing.

1:55-2:00- camera stays still on wide shot as he walks forward, dancers in spooky white morph suits begin to enter shot – eerie dancing ala James Blake ‘overgrown’ .

2:01-2:03- zoom back onto back into close up shot of back of his head

2:04-2:06- swing around to face, lip synching, see dancers gaining ground and getting close

Slavador Dali's Skull

2:07-2:10- camera swings down to ground, showing feet, then forward revealing dancers to have over taken

2:11-2:14- he comes to stand still, POV shot revealing dancers

2:15-2:20- they assemble into Dali skull

2:21-2:22- continuation

2:23-2:27- he slowly walks towards them, wide shot from behind now

2:28-2:30- continuation

2:31-2:36- stops infront of them

2:37-2:40-close –up of his eyes, dancers reflected in them (Escher)

2:41-2:43- zoom out to face, pensive expression, faced with death… his eyes close and he looks up

2:44-2:48- camera pans up to night sky

2:49-2:51- return to performance element, close up of face singing

2:52-2:54- zoom out to wide shot

2:55-2:57- he sings last note

2:58-3:00 looks down and screen fades into black

This one is called 'Revised Timeline' simply because we didn't have enough time to actually finish our original timeline before we had to change our story to something completely different. Stay tuned for the Revised Treatment, coming soon.

Revised Music Video Treatment

The tone of the song is one of misery, despair and loneliness. we will not put forward a direct narrative to express these themes, rather capture the atmosphere of them in a variety of short scenes. There will be an overriding narrative following the aftermath of a broken relationship. Within the video we will incorporate a range of abstract skulls, drawing our inspiration from 'All is Vanity' and its recent use in a Dior commercial as well as Dali's human skull. Our video will open in a bedroom. A wide shot will be used to capture the entire interior depicting an unmade bed, general mess, broken picture frame on floor to suggest a fight the night before. Woman at dressing table a la all is vanity applying make-up to bruise/swelling on cheek again suggesting a recent argument. We want to portray the nature of the lead singer who is a troubled man and moves from broken relationship to broken relationship. The video will then cut to a bar where he will be sitting on a stool at the bar, drinking. The way we use the light and line up the bottles will create a skull image. The first few skulls must be very clear to the audience, but after the first one or two the audience will be expectant of a skull and they can become more ambiguous and artistic. Therefore, the next skull will be found in a cigarette butt light up against a street wall. We will blur the camera so the one glowing ember is distorted into two and later in Photoshop; if possible will manipulate the smoke rings to curl round creating a cranium for the skull. The white collar of his shirt can create the outline of the jaw. The will have to film this at night as this is when the glowing ember and shirt collar will make for the most effective shot. For our final shot (we may potentially add or remove one, it is still up in the air) will take place in a woodland as we have direct access to it. he will be strolling in a despaired fashion in the moonlight. dancers, like in the James Blake video 'Overgrown' will follow him through the night in black/white if they show up- will have to experiment morph suits doing forward roles. They will fall into Dali's skull at the end. We have already experimented with this using human parts and it worked badly due to the varying colours of their clothing. However, I reckon if executed in a serious fashion it would be more successful. Throughout this narrative we will cut to the performance element. This is a man sitting in a room with peeling wallpaper/ posters we could try and incorporate a skull but that might be over kill.

Profiling Our Target Audience

Our target audience for the single will most likely be quite broad, with listeners being mostly aged between twenty-five and forty-five. We can profile potential audience members using the JICNARS scale in order to know how to best market our product. Due to the ranged age group of country listeners, we won't be able to pinpoint an exact social grade who will be the most interested, however we can assume that most of our consumers will fall within the C2 and E boundaries in America, and in Britain, the C1 and A boundaries. The reason for this is that in the United States, where country began, it was sung by poor, working class men about their daily lives as a way to pass the time and possibly make some money on the side. In Great Britain however, country music has been intellectualised and is mostly listened to by the middle classes and the well educated. It has been altered into a kind of 'alternative' form of country, and has been described as 'skinny indie music'. Because of this alteration, it shows that the performers/listeners are more interested in expressing their thoughts, feelings, opinions and all those other things that absolutely nobody cares about with music rather than their fists (which is what the working class men who created country would undoubtedly have done, life is full of little ironies like that).

In order to further our ability to efficiently market and generate a profit, we can utilise Psychographic Segmentation, or lifestyle profiling to further try to attract the attention of our audience, for example where to advertise; what kinds of places would our audience go to and see our product, which websites will they visit, which radio stations and TV channels are they most likely to watch? In order to get a better idea of the habits of our audience, we can refer to the Values, Attitudes and Lifestyles (VALS) classification system. This method closely ties in with the JICNARS scale, although rather than targeting audiences by class and social status, it uses personality types as a basis for profiling them into a certain category. The most surprising (?) thing about this system is that it actually works alarmingly accurately.

The JICNARS Scale... 

VALS: "It should be understood from the start that these lifestyle categories are not fixed and immutable. Many people grow from one level to another as children, as adolescents, and as adults. Some very few may start at the bottom and reach the top within a lifetime, but far more common is movement of a level or two." - Context Institute (c) 1983

References For Star Image: Rock N' Roll

Elvis Presley

Link Wray 

Johnny Cash

Rock N' Roll. Perhaps the purest, most raw form of  musical communication in the known universe. It's roots are comprised of the Blues, Folk Music and of course, Western, which would later go on to become country. Both Rock N' Roll and Country were spawned (if partially in the case of the former) from the same genre of music, Western, which is why they are of course, so closely intertwined. Often there is a fine line between what is classified as Rock and what is classified as Country. A fine example of this is Johnny Cash, he has been described as being both of those things by several different people.

References For Star Image: Country Rebels

Willie Nelson

Billy Joe Shaver

Hank Williams Jr.

For our artist's star image, it is divided into two rough parts, this is of course one of those parts. Being a country singer and everything, he has to look like one, so I have chosen a few other singers to compare him to in order to further develop his star image. All of these singers have the classic country look of a beard, a cowboy hat, shirt and jeans, as well as all standing on stage strumming chords from their acoustic guitars. This of course gives them a completely organic look, as it shows that they have talent, there are no studio effects, just their voice and the guitar. Also, in America (especially the southern states), these things would be the clothes that regular people wear every day. Another essential element to this particular form of country is rebellion. All of the artists listed to the left are in some way, rebelling against the system. There is perhaps no finer example of a country rebel than Willie Nelson, who, has been married four times, has been arrested several times and at age 80 still smokes weed every day. It might not be a particularly healthy lifestyle, but it certainly fits in with the rebellious image. Hank Williams Jr. is the son of Hank Williams, who is considered the founder of country. Hank Jr. went through a phase of severe alcohol and drug abuse before nearly being killed while climbing in Montana. He grew the beard and adopted the sunglasses and hat to hide the scars. He is rarely seen without them. Billy Joe Shaver was a sawmill worker who lost two of his fingers to the machinery where he worked (not dissimilar from Tony Iommi). He then hitchhiked to LA where he became a singer and has worked with many notable artists, although never gained widespread recognition himself. In 2007 a warrant for his arrest was issued when he shot a man in the face outside a tavern, but was later acquitted when the man's injuries were deemed 'not life threatening'. We want our artist to fit into this 'outlaw country' bracket, to have the look and the feel of a genuine country artist.



Developing Video Treatment

Opens with a man walking through a forest. Starting with heels walking through leaf litter then panning up legs and back to head where the camera comes around to his face as he walks and starts to sing. Wide shot from behind showing surrounding forestry and clearing ahead. Couple of seconds after comes to clearing. Three attractive girls dressed in flowing white (sirens) are on rocks (back-up singers as well). They are sitting on the rocks looking seductive. When they see him they approach him, come up to him, stroke his chest etc. they remove his guitar, jacket and watch. The sirens entice him into the water and he obeys. They walk in getting deeper and deeper until the water is mid-chest level. They gently push him back and his head goes under. Couple of seconds when he is suspended in the water then flash backs over broken relationships begin. This could involve arguments, punching/hitting partners, partner sobbing into pillow, him staggering home after drinking, bar fights, empty savings – everything to show he’s a real tosser.  This should take up approximately a minute and a half. A separate performance is also weaved throughout the video, this could simply be him sitting on an empty stage playing. Towards the end of the song when he has been submerged long enough that he would be about to die he fights to the surface ‘reborn’. At this point he could either be a reformed man who leaves the river without sin as though baptized. Alternatively he could come up having not been reformed, but not looking especially evil either, as you could argue that people never really reform.

Star Image

The Felice Brothers

 

Father John Misty

Josh T. Pearson

Daughn Gibson

The image that we want to create for our video and our singer is that of an 'alternative' kind of country, infused with rock n' roll. On the left are examples of the kinds of acts we are looking at specifically, as they have the music and the image that we are going for. We want the singer (and possible instrumentalists) to look like genuine country musicians. This means that in terms of dress, we are talking cowboy boots and hat (that's a given), a work shirt and either blue or black jeans. Because we are using students for this video, the performer will probably not have the Pearsonesque long, flowing beard, but of course we can work around that. Nothing about the singer should be too clean or neat, as the first country/western bands were all working men who sung in their spare time. The way he is dressed will identify him as a star, but at the same time make him attainable to his fans. Our man should have the same kind of anti-authoritarian attitude and appeal that Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson had, as I said, this guy isn't clean cut. This will of course fit in nicely with Richard Dyer's star theory involving rebellion. Another crucial part of the image is the fact that he is most definitely an organic star, and should be depicted strumming on an old acoustic guitar (a la Willie Nelson's 'Trigger' guitar) to emphasise the fact that he is 'the real deal' and not one of the so called Country Pop acts.



Authenticity is one of the key things in country music that attracts listeners and fans of the both the songs and culture that surrounds country. Unlike other pop bands, country singers tend not to fill their songs with melodramatic garbage, they stick to things that happen in everyday life. Things that actually matter to people in their regular, everyday lives weather they want to admit it or not. Through use of a more rustic style, country artists distance themselves from the synthetic pop acts, giving themselves an image that is very much organic. As well as looking natural, they will act natural in the videos too, there will not be any unnecessary mincing about or dancing, they are just going to perform and pretty much just chill out. At the same time though, they do still have a rebellious image, if you take away the beards, the way they dress is similar to that of Elvis Presley and Link Wray (particularly apparent in Daughn Gibson). Country and old time Rock N' Roll are more closely related than you might initially think. The only real difference between the two is that in country there are no amplifiers with the gain cranked, or any black leather jackets.

Feedback On Group Video Ideas

When it actually came to pitching our ideas as a group, we thought that we had taken the best ideas from everyone's videos and put them together into a sensible treatment that would provide a thrill for audiences as well as sober reflection. With this in mind, we pitched to Luke. Apparently we hadn't. The concept was okay, or so they said, but it would be much to difficult to execute, none of the students here would be able to pull it off and that it would perhaps be a bit cliché. Also we hadn't really settled on a song before going on to plan out our video, which understandably was cause for objection, although they did like our song selection that we had. So that wasn't too bad. We were along the right lines at least. A suggestion was made to rethink and rework the Lou Reed song, but I don't think we'll do that one, it'll end up being too literal. I think we'll end up doing a Josh T. Pearson song instead, but I'll get to all that in just a minute. For now though, we were pretty much back to the drawing board after that meeting, but we were not discouraged (the latter being a massive lie, by the way).

Feedback On My Video Ideas

Having presented my music video ideas to the class, one in particular was favoured in particular over the others. 'Ride The Lightning' seems to be the one that was the most popular, more so than 'Please Don't Touch', which was a surprise for me as the latter is much more commercial and was a chart success when it came out in 1981. Against the odds, the Metallica idea won. This was because it apparently had the most cohesive storyline and would be the most interesting for the viewer to watch. It is quite a dark storyline, influenced by Stephen King's 'The Green Mile', which was adapted into a popular film starring Tom Hanks, which means that it will be recognised and appreciated by many music fans who have seen the movie or read the book. It will also appeal to all the thrash fans who will watch the video, what could be more gnarly than someone getting fried riding old sparky? This will appeal to the young thrash fans who are typically aged between 15 and 25, as well as the older fans who grew up when Metallica first released the album in 1986 (so 40-50ish).
The video would be filmed using lighting that is dark and shadowy, yet highly contrasting, as if none of the light in the building work properly. An example of this kind is Metallica's 1989 music video for 'One'.



Brilliant video that.

Choosing The Song/Band Within Our Group

In order to create our music videos, we all divided into groups, as it would be impossible for everyone to each make their own music video. The process that followed was us mashing all of our ideas together. This of course is probably the most challenging part of the entire project as everyone, especially in our group, has very strong and conflicting ideas about what kind of music it should be, what the style of video should be, what the band should look like, the list is endless. After much deliberation however, we managed to narrow it down a bit and get a rough idea of what we were going to do.


Our Initial Brainstorm, This is when we brought all of our ideas
 together and tried to make something out of it that would satisfy
everyone involved.

We started our process by gathering elements of all our ideas in one big brainstorm. We each chose an aspect of our videos and thought of different ways we could use, interpret and incorporate into our video. Our group has four members, so our four ideas were; 'Dark', 'Ol' Sparky', 'Fairy tale' and 'Transvestite'. These four words are of course useless on their own, but as ideas they weren't. We initially gathered that we would do an S&M type love story with a dominatrix in some kind of seedy club, with the band being a kind of velvet underground kind of thing.



We narrowed them down further, listing influence from film
and other music in order to establish the kind of video
 we wanted.

 

 

Until we finally established a fairly coherent concept, the style
of song we would be doing, the band's rough image and
 some more refined narrative ideas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 





Video Idea #2: 'Ride The Lightning' - Metallica

Video Idea #1: 'Please Don't Touch' - Motörhead/Girlschool

Account Of Lip Sync Exercise

We entered the studio at about 9am and began to set up our cameras in front of three different set pieces, one green screen, one fake stone wall and a kind of living room set-up with wallpapered walls, a wooden floor, a couch and a window. In front of the stone we put a tracking dolly, the other two setups were stationary shots, the couch camera usually kept high-angle, the green screen one pretty much eye level and all of them had varied degrees of close up shots. Upon completion of the shot setups some issues were already apparent, the studio is quite a small space as it is and with three different sets operating simultaneously in there, things were crowded and hectic. The choice in music was an issue on a personal level, listening to the same appalling song again and again for an entire morning, but sometimes you just have to deal. I think overall though the shoot went pretty well, the tracking shots especially turned out very clear and professional looking, the green screen was probably the worst, the shots just didn't really capture any attention during editing and I thought that they looked boring. The couch wasn't too bad, wasn't great either. I think it also had a lot to do with the lighting setup, the wall had really effective side lighting so it looked professional, whereas the others were front lit, which doesn't bring out the actor/singer/lip-syncer's features as well, they look slightly two dimensional. The studio is a really good space to work in, if there are fewer bodies in there, we had two (maybe more) different classes in there all shooting at the same time, so it really could not be utilised to the extent that it usually can. One thing I will say though, there were no sound issues, which is one of those small, everyday blessings that are so uplifting in our lives. Editing was also a breeze compared to our previous thrillers, it is much easier to know when to make cuts if there is a beat and lyrics, though I must stress that we didn't just cut on the beats, I've wasted enough time watching music videos to know better than that. Unlike our thrillers, we also had a lot of useable material to work with, as opposed to trying to peice together something from nothing. The only problem we had really during editing was the fact that the computer kept crashing whenever we tried to drag a clip onto the timeline, technology can be so tempramental, but Matt came and sorted that for us. As a team I thought we worked pretty effectively, we got the job done and we did it as best we could, which as it turns out was pretty damn good. Pats on the back all round I think. The morning shoot and the editing that followed really went very well and was a fun process to be involved in.

Organic And Synthetic Stars

An organic star is someone who has gained fame and success on their own, relying on talent and in most cases, a band, and being part of that band is the main reason that they have become a 'star' in the first place. Rock and Metal bands are the best examples of organic stars because they are are the best, musically and otherwise, they are what most people think of when the word 'star' is mentioned, in reference to music anyway. Synthetic stars are something different entirely, rather than being recognised for their talents (if existent), they are a persona created by the record companies to generate revenue for a few years until the next big thing comes along.

Organic Stars:

Johnny Ramone 

Johnny Ramone is an ultimate example of an organic star, being in a punk band and everything, he's as organic as they come. The Ramones are a punk rock band from New York, formed in 1974, they started their career by playing in small clubs like CBGB and were signed to Sire Records after being noticed by one of it's representatives, Seymour Stein. Throughout their recording and performing career, they stayed true to their original image, singer Joey Ramone allowed the label to shape and mould him into their money making star, whereas Johnny maintained the same mentality and attitude up until the day he died. Johnny invented and retained their classic look of black perfecto jackets, jeans and trainers and really didn't care what anyone had to say about them. He could certainly tell today's artists a thing or two about integrity, that's for sure.  

Synthetic Stars:

Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga is a synthetic act because her image and music are generated by her record label rather than by her. She was first spotted by talent scout Rob Fusari singing for SGBand, her own organic band and was picked up which would eventually lead to her being signed to Def Jam records and then eventually CherryTree records. For her and her fans, it is more about her image than her music, both of which are exploited by the record label as another way of making money and giving another aritst their shot at fame until the next big thing comes along. Is that really harsh? Anyway, Lady Gaga = Synthetic.

AS Thriller Poster

My AS thriller was called Umeå, it is named after a town in Sweden, so i designed my thriller poster accordingly.