COURSEWORK DEADLINE - JANUARY 25th

Props - Alcohol Bottles

Today, I collected some props we are going to use within my music video. We are going to fill the bottles with water and juice to ensure that our music video looks as realistic as possible. We probably aren't going to be using all of the bottles, but we wanted to have extra just in case.

Crew list

Tasnim Khanum - Co-directing, editing and filming all scenes - must be present at all times

Sarah Jeena - Co-directing, editing and playing the lead female in the music video - must be present at all times

Omar Abassi + Liban Ali - will be helping out with filming and mise-en-scene planning in bottle breaking scene - need help carrying props and filming from different angles

Theatre managers - Will control lighting for  projector scene - dark/light according to what is being shown on projector e.g. park scene = bright, her drinking = dark, party scene = strobe

Filsan and Sonbul - Will be dancing at the house party - dressed promiscuously - will have to pretend to drink and smoke

Editing

Today, I managed to complete a successful two hours of editing. All of the scenes we've filmed so far have been edited to black and white and all that is left now is to finish filming the two scenes we have left and edit them in including transitions. All in all, a very productive day!

Storyboard

Shooting Schedule

DAY/TIME	LOCATION	SHOT DESCRIPTION	PEOPLE NEEDED
October  20th – AM	House – bedroom	Sarah in front of dressing table – mid and close up shots  of face and neck – putting on make up/crying/taking make up off	Tasnim and Sarah
October 20th – AM	House – kitchen	Drinking alcohol whilst eating breakfast – messy kitchen – wine glasses with lipstick stains left drying up – long shot from the side – close up of lips	Tasnim and Sarah
October 24th – Evening	House – living room	House party – pan shot of room - crane shot of party – looking down on girls dancing – close ups of girls dancing – body parts – drugs lying around focus on them	Tasnim and Sarah
October 24th - Evening	House - bathroom	Sarah going into bathroom – taking a breath – re-applying lipstick composing herself – zoom in on alcohol bottles	Filsan, Sonbul, Sarah, Bahno – girls for party Tasnim
October 27th -  Afternoon	School - Theatre	Projector – Extra long shot – more focus on projected images of her in media limelight and park scene – Marilyn Monroe clips Breaking down in front of projector – eye-level  mid shot -long shots	Sarah and Tasnim Theatre lights manager
October 28th - Day	House – Garden	Glass alcohol bottles shattering – being thrown against wall – eye level  and worms eye shot	Tasnim and Sarah
October 30th - Afternoon	House – Living room	Sarah and Deacon drinking – kissing – taking advantage – close ups and long shots – through/over glass	Sarah and Deacon Tasnim

Sequence Structure

Shoot

Sarah and I went filming yesterday and managed to complete shooting the breakfast scene and the scene where Sarah is shown drinking alone. We decided to use the same house but different rooms to show a range of locations.

We then went back to school and edited these scenes adding black and white effects and adjusting the contrast and brightness. We managed to capture the scenes from a range of angles and have also sped up some of the clips to create the illusion that the day is fast paced and also to go with the beat of the music.

Final Digipak

This is the final and complete version of my groups Digipak. As you can see, we continued with our initial idea of creating a fully black and white Digipak, however we adjusted both the contrast and brightness of each image, the sharpness, and even used a holgaart effect in one of our images (shown below).

For this particular image, we decided to blur the entire picture except for the wine bottle, the glass and the female's hair as we felt as though these things stood out the most and we wanted to emphasize them further. We didn't want the editing to be too obvious however, which is why the difference isn't too noticeable at first glance.

In order to not make our Digipak look too busy, we decided to use this blurry image to have behind the track list. It is not obvious what the image is of, therefore adding to the mysterious and alternative approach we're adopting in regards to the anonymity of our artist.

 

Finally, this image of the back of a female alone outside with the wind blowing through hair is supposed to represent both femininity and independence, however the fact that there is no face therefore expression shown, it could be seen as a girl having to face the world alone. Either way, the image fundamentally looks aesthetically pleasing and isn't too obvious which is what we wanted to portray.

Wordle

Target audience descriptions

Our target audience would mainly be aimed at teenagers, preferably females as there is only one female in the whole music video. Males would also be attracted to video because of the Laura Mulvey theory which we applied to our media project.

We chose teenagers to be our target audience because the lyrics could apply to them as it talks about alcohol and drugs and a hint of love life. Here are the lyrics:

(Verse 1)

From the morning to the evening

Complaints from the tenants

Got the walls kickin like they six months pregnant

Drinking Alizé with our cereal for breakfast

Girls calling cabs at dawn quarter to 7:00

Skies getting cold

Flying from the north

Rockin with our city like a sold out show

House full of hoes that specialize into hoein

Make that money rain as they takin off they clothes

Order plane tickets

Cali is the mission

Visit every month like I'm split life living

Let the world listen if a haters caught slipping then my ni**as stay tight

Got my back like pimpin

Fast life grippin

Yeah we still tippin

Codeine cups paint a picture so vivid

Fakes try to mimic

Get girls timid

But behind closed doors they get oh so rigid

(Chorus)

All that money the money is the motive

All that money the money is the motive

All that money the money she be foldin

Girl put in work girl girl put in work

Girl put in work girl girl put in work

Girl put in work

(Verse 2)

Push it to the limit

Push it through the pain

I push it for the pleasure like the virgin to the game

A virgin to that money

A virgin to the fame

So this my only chance and when I'm over only pray that I flow from the bottom

Closer to the top

The higher that I climb

The harder I'ma drop

These pussy ass ni**as tryna hold on to their credit so I tell them use a debit watch they image start to lessen

I warned 'em like discretion

Why these ni**as testing

Always fu**ing testing

Why these ni**as testing

Sh*t that I got them on straight bar hopping to the music of the ambiance

Get sh*t popping

Zombies of the night

Ni**as aint talking if they hyping to the crew get it in like pockets

Downtown loving

When the moon coming

Only place to find base heads, and hot women

(Chorus)

Better slow down

She'll feel it in the morning

Aint the kind of girl you'll be seeing in the morning

Too damn raw aint no ni**a worth her holding

Aint no ni**a that she holding man her love is too damn foreign

(Chorus x2)

Teenagers would be able to relate to these lyrics as this is the time of their life where they are being introduced to new things. Our music video may help teenagers realise that this is not the way to live your life as the girl in the music video is just ruining herself by drinking all the time and smoking too.

The audience are expecting a music video which goes well with the music so it is slow and is quite reflective due to the lyrics. They expect to see a man in the video with maybe a few women however, we decided to change this and only use a female as this makes the video a lot more effective due to the singer being male. We made ours quite different to the video which The Weeknd used however there are a few similarities. 

Here is a video made by some university students which was then used for this song:

Our video is in black and white however the similarities between the two are that we also showed a reference to alcohol and drugs.

The age of our target audience would be 15+. There are a few parts of the song where there is bad language used however we think it is acceptable for 15 year olds to listen to.

All our filming was done in Coventry, mainly in my house and we used some locations in the school. We chose to do this in order for the girl in the video to look like she was living in a normal 'area'. We did not want to include many other people in the video so when we filmed in public, we made sure it was at a quiet time.

Our audience would either be in education, employed or unemployed. They would be able to view our music video through the internet and on music channels.

The type of things this audience would be interested in is socialising which could be done by going out or through social networks, sports, relationships, work etc. They would be able to listen to this whenever they engage in their hobbies.

The look we want to give off for our music video is that it is quite dark and slow so that it fits in with the music and creates a gloomy atmosphere. All throughout the music video, it will be quite 'depressing' as the female is just drinking all the time however, at the end, the last clip is of her smiling so we wanted to send out a positive message to our audience.

Our target audience will be into a lot of contemporary films due to their age range. This includes films like Side Effects which involves drugs and so our music video would interest them also. Alongside films, they watch a lot of television shows such as Eastenders, Waterloo Road, Youngers etc. These involve alcohol, drugs, relationships etc which fits in perfectly with our music video and our music video would appeal to them. The music they will be into includes the artist who made the song for our music video, The Weeknd. They are also into a variety of other artists such as Rihanna, Jay Z, Taylor Swift etc. These artists make similar music to The Weeknd and so they would watch our music video.

We want our music video to be able to influence teenagers and make changes in their life. This is why we decided to have negativity all throughout the video until the end because we are trying to portray that there is always a happy ending for everyone. Our music video can help teenagers realise there is more to life than messing around.

Target audience

This is what we imagine our target audience to dress/look like:

 

Updated Advertisement

Sarah and I felt that our advertisement for our digipak was not up to the standard we wanted it to be, therefore we decided to create a new one. Our new advertisement (shown below) has been created with better picture quality in mind in order to make it look more professional and it also includes more information about the actual release of the album, for example, the date. We decided to take away the reviews because although they are a common convention of advertisements, we wanted to continue our 'mysterious' identity and not give too much away about the artist or his achievements. The aim is to make our artist stand out, and I believe that the simplicity we have tried to obtain in our new advertisement will make audiences who the Weeknd is or what their music is about.

Updated Digipak

Copyright Permission Letter

The Weeknd Copyright Letter

Lyrics - Analysis

 

After analysing the lyrics for the song together, Sarah and I managed to narrow down the fundamental ideas behind our music video and compile a list of the main scenes we wanted to include.We will be adding to this list as our ideas develop and may not include everything within it, however we feel as though we should include a range of clips to make the video look as professional and more importantly effective as possible.

• We have decided to use a projector to show flashbacks of the leading females past or career highlights where she is seen smiling and laughing or looking glamorous. We want to create a contrast in these scenes by then show the female distraught either leaning against the wall or sitting on the floor looking a mess whilst the projector plays. This will represent the images haunting her mind. 

• We will show her sat in front of a dressing table looking at her reflection at the beginning and end of the music video. We want to show her starting off looking nice and dressing up and then show her crying and drinking alcohol in front of the same mirror at the end before looking pretty again. She could be putting an expensive necklace on at the beginning or dressing up for a big event.

• We want to show clips of her pouring herself a drink at home recklessly whilst sipping gracefully on her drink outdoors. We will focus on her drinking at home and show bottles lying around her house and in her handbag etc.

• Linking to the last point, we will attempt creating a slow motion clip of a bottle of alcohol smashing. This will be aesthetically pleasing whilst also representing how alcohol is 'breaking' her.

• We will include a house party where 'hoes' or provocatively dressed women will be dancing with one another in a seductive way. Within this scene we will also be showing flashing shots of money, drugs and alcohol lying around. 

• We will show smoke coming out of her mouth as she smokes and show this in slow motion.

• We may also include a scene where she is being taken advantage of slightly but she doesn't mind because she's drunk and out of control and doesn't struggle. This will make her seem vulnerable and show a dark, seedy side to being glamorous and beautiful.

Digipak practise shots

Sarah and I have decided to continue with our black and white theme by using b&w imagery within our digipak, however we may be using slight splashes of color on the text if we feel that it looks good on the digipak and doesn't overtake the overall black and white effect we want to keep consistent.

This is another practice edit I did. I envisage this image being used as the back panel of the digipak as it shows her back and has been taken from an original angle. By not showing her face, the focus on the world around her and how she's standing alone in it. Also, her back is being shown in a girly dress which correlates with the girly, classy image we are trying to create.

Magazine Advertisement - First Draft

Digipak - Possible Images

Rough Digipak

In regards to my groups Digipak, we had various ideas which all included grainy black and white images. The reason we decided to do this is to keep the use of imagery and vagueness of the music video consistent in order to be able to identify the artists album easily.

The three images at the bottom are obviously all a part of the same photo however after conducting some research into professionally made digipaks, I found that spreading the images out in this style was not only aesthetically pleasing but also a good way of emphasizing a specific object or the artists face if this is being shown. As we are not showing our artists face, we are trying to create a digipak which is interesting and stands out, whilst not making the female used within the images look like she's the artist to someone who may not be aware that the singer is male.

Digipak Shoot

Today, Sarah and I spent roughly thirty minutes doing hair and make up in preparation for our digipak shoot before taking a range of photographs. We initially planned to spend fourty minutes taking the photographs to ensure that we had a good range of photographs to choose out of, however, we managed to finish within twenty minutes because we had prepared beforehand. All in all, a productive day!

Naming the artist

Initially, Sarah and I were going to change the name of the artist from 'The Weeknd' to 'Freddie J', however, after much deliberation, we decided that it would be more interesting and challenging to try to completely recreate the brand image using the same name. This would allow us to gain an insight into how the music industry works from a range of angles and would also enable us to work even harder to achieve a completely different brand image within the same genre.

Props and Equipment

Props:

• Vodka Bottle

• Wine Bottle

• Nightgown

• Cereal bowl

• Glass - for vodka

• Wine glass

Equipment

• Nikon camera

• Tripod

• Spare battery 

• Spare memory card