Narrative Problems

After our pitch, we decided that our feedback was leaning too heavily on the fact that our original idea could be potentially boring. We therefore needed to meet up and try and come up with an altered idea.

We still want to keep the idea of heavy emphasis on a couple in love, if possible. What we need to consider is creating a more detailed narrative, to generate more interest for the duration of the song.

Also we need to further consider how the narrative and the performance element of the video match up to each other, and who is going to play each part in the video.

Questionnaire Feedback

This is the response we had from our questionnaire we did. We handed it out to 20 people, that is, 10 people each, and we both tried to get a variation of ages and gender so that we covered all possible audiences. For privacy reasons, we won't put specific ages or names on this post. We can say that our questionnaire covered a spread of ages over 50 years however.

What are the top 3 bands/ artists you listen to?

For this question, we had a massive variety of artist names put forward, ranging from bands such as Paramore and 30 Seconds To Mars, in comparison to artists such as Dolly Parton and Cliff Richard. It was fairly easy to pick out a strong collaration between younger people listening to more modern music, and older people listening to music from when they grew up. We can pick out from this though that we can cross out an older audience from our target market, as according to their responses they had no particular interest in the genre of music our song is.

How do you buy music?

From this question, we can basically generalise and say that the majority of people up to the age of 50 tend to download their music off the internet. Only the younger people in this age bracket have their friends send it to them. This is possibly because they receive it mostly via Bluetooth or MSN, which are both applications that is exclusively used by teenagers (11-19 ish). Only a very small amount of people said they buy C.Ds, or don't buy music at all, and they all fit into the older age bracket.

Do you go to music concerts, if at all?

Reading the responses to this question, it seems to be a younger persons thing to go to a lot of music concerts. This, matched with addition feedback we were told as our participants filled in the questionnaires, led us to conclude that it is more a younger persons thing to go to many concerts. From this we can add to our already building picture of who our target audience is for sure.

What are your favourite animated films?

Again, this is another question we had a varied response to. Films that came up a lot (regardless of age) were Toy Story, and a variety of Disney classics. The most variation came again that that younger people tended to have a preference to more modern films, such as Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs (2009), whereas the older people said films such as Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971).


From all of this, we can establish that our target audience fits into a slightly lower age bracket than we assmued in our pitch (see older post). We originally said that it would be 13-20 years old, whereas it turned out to actually be 11-19 years old. The people within this bracket tend to have a very modern prefernce for music and films, and get a lot of their music either off the internet or from their friends. They also generally go to quite a few concerts to see their favourite bands.

Questionnaire

Questionnaire Market Research

Feedback from our Pitch/ Evaluation

People said:

• Our idea needs a unique selling point e.g. the chase of the relationship.
• Avoid boring repetitiveness.
• Avoid copyright.
• Intertextuality using shrek.
• Put humour into it. 
• Must make people want to watch it.

Evaluation

I think that we were given back good feedback.We will take onboard what everyone has said especially to avoid boring repetitiveness. We learnt from the feedback that it would be best to have more of a clear narrative than having repetitiveness.

Our Pitch

Media a2 music video pitch

View more presentations from hirokram.

Market Research

We decided that we needed to do some market research for our music video to determine our target audience. We decided the best way to do this would be to do a questionnaire about their music preferences. We decided to hand it out to 10 people each. Doing it this way would give us a range of opinions, rather than just a narrow band of them.

Counting Crows - Accidentally in Love

This is the music video/ song that we decided to do for our coursework, unless our audience disagree with our chosen song.

We chose this song because it was short, so this would be easier for us since there are only two of us, and also because we had lots of ideas for making our remake of this song as the lyrics are very inspiring and descriptive.

Here are the lyrics of the song:

So she said "What's the problem baby?"
What's the problem? I don't know
Well, maybe I'm in love ( love )
I think about it every time
I think about it
Can't stop thinking 'bout it

How much longer will it take to cure this?
Just to cure it cause I can't ignore it
If it's love ( love )
Makes me wanna turn around and face me
But I don't know nothing 'bout love

Come on, come on
Turn a little faster
Come on, come on
The world will follow after
Come on, come on
Cause everybody's after looooveeeeee.

So I said "I'm a snowball running
Running down into the spring that's coming"
All this love
melting under blue skies
Belting out sunlight
Shimmering love

Well, baby, I surrender
To the strawberry ice cream
Never ever ender
All this love
Well I didn't mean to do it
But there's no escaping your love

These lines of lightning
Mean we're never alone,
Never alone, no, no

Come on, Come on
Move a little closer
Come on, Come on
I want to hear you whisper
Come on, Come on
Settle down inside my love

Come on, come on
Jump a little higher
Come on, come on
If you feel a little lighter
Come on, come on
We were once upon a time in love

We're accidentally in love
Accidentally in love…

I'm In Love, I'm in Love,
I'm in Love, I'm in Love,
I'm in Love, I'm in Love,
Accidentally…

Come on, come on
Spin a little tighter
Come on, come on
And the world's a little brighter
Come on, come on
Just get yourself inside her

Love!...I'm in love!

This was written for the Shrek 2. It appears near the beginning of the movie. Lead singer Adam Duritz said of it: "I was really struggling with it. I generally don't write songs on demand, and I almost got to the point where I thought I wasn't going to do it. They just told me that the song had to be uplifting. They actually said, 'Don't write a song about Shrek. Write a song that's about you.' The funny thing is, the song ended up reflecting a lot of what was going on in my life at the time: falling in love with someone you're not supposed to fall in love with because it's inconvenient. My songs for Counting Crows are mature and generally don't get a chance to reach kids. To be part of something like that is pretty cool."

Moodboard 2

Created on Animoto, exported to YouTube and shared to Blogger.

Moodboard 1

Created on Animoto, exported to YouTube and shared to Blogger.

Music Video Analysis 4

This video features off beat editing throughout, which perhaps eludes to the genre of music (alternative rock), by trying to be different to how you would expect it to be. The lengths of the shots themselves are faily short throughout, and the editing in places uses jump cuts, as they cut a second or so out at a time to make it slightly disorientating. It also gives the video a light hearted feel for the most part, matched the action on screen, which is quiet silly in places, for example where one of the people on the bridge steals the bicycle. The lyrics themselves don't always give a good feeling, as in places they are quite reflective as opposed to be cheerful. They also don't present a meaning that is shown in action of the video; instead, the visuals present their own meaning.

Like most music videos, this one has a vast majority of close ups and mid shots, with the occasional long shot thrown in (for example, the shots of the man dancing on the bridge with the umbrella). Again, matched with the fast editing, it gives a good feeling throughout. The video is a narrative based one, and features no performance shots at all in it. The narrative doesn't actually follow the lyrics, and instead follows its own path between a man and someone else who appears to be his conscience in the form of another man.

In relation to Andrew Goodwins theory, the video's narrative generally ignores the meaning of the song (disjuncture). Also, their is a degree of voyeurism, where the guy up the tree is looking into the womans house from outside. This part is played on heavily, as the next shot shows the guy doing an exaggerated expression of pleasure, and making a kissing motion also. This part also fits in which Laura Mulveys Male Gaze theory, because the only purpose of the woman in this video is to look at her in a sexual way.

Music Video Analysis 3

We chose this music video because it goes vey well with our genre because it has the movie characters that are in Shrek in it.

The editing is on the beat. The music is quite upbeat and happy which matches the mise en scene. It has a clear narrative, which has images that match the lyrics. For example when the chorus starts with 'then I saw her face', three times someone turns their head. The scene, when the lead singer is singing down into the camera, is repeated quite a few times throughout the video.

Using Andrew Goodwin's theory.

There are quite a few shots of the band but there are more sshots of the action, which shows that there is quite a bit of relationship between the lyrics and visuals.
The singer keeps going after this woman to give something back to her. This illustates the choruses lyrics.
Each chorus has a new scene but the message it is trying to put across is the same.
This music video has a narrative with the lead singer telling the story through the lyrics.

Music Video Analysis 2

The editing is on the beat. In the verses the shot lengths are quite slow and are quite long but when it is the chorus the shot lengths get quicker and become shorter because it matches the tempo of the music. There is hardly any use of tracking dollies. The meaning is presented more through visuals. The music is quite upbeat and happy which matches the mise en scene, such as the bright colours of the house. This video is performance based featuring lip syncing. It has a clear narrative which has images that match the lyrics. For example when the child puts an L to his forehead.

Using Andrew Goodwin's theory.

There are of lots of close ups of the band which shows hardly any relationship between the lyrics and visuals.
The singer plays an 'all star' role by saving the dog and saving the girl under bus which illustrates the choruses lyrics.
Each chorus has a new scene for 'you're an all star' and 'you're a rock star'. So although the scenes are different, the messages are the same, which amplifies the message. This music video has a narrative with the lead singer telling the story through the lyrics.
Throughout the video there are key scenes that illustrate points from the lyrics where the band members are involved. For example the L.
Also every chorus has a different little scene to illustrate 'you're an all star' and also a scene to illustrate the line 'you're a rock star'.
There are some intertextual references when there is the limo scenes. Rock stars often go around in stretched limos.

Music Video Analysis 1

This video is mostly performance based, with a small narrative via intertextuality. If you are famaliar with the music videos for the charity "Band Aid" songs, you will notice there is a copy of that style, with various well known childrens T.V characters turning up to sing a part of the song, instead of celebritries. This reflects the videos target audience, which consists of mainly children of the 80's to the present day, as the characters all come from those eras. The action and the cuts are all syncronised to the beat of the song, and the shot types themselves are generally either close ups or mid shots, and a lot of the shots have either a small zoom in out on them. The duration of the shots are fairly drawn out, as each character sings their part of the song, so that we can see them and have time to realise who they actually are.

In relation to theory, this video has disjuncture, which is part of Andrew Goodwins theory, because there is no relation between the lyrics and the visuals. This is mostly because it is a medley of various songs, which makes it difficult to show a relation, so the video is mainly performance based. Another theory that fits in is John Stewarts theory that the music video has aesthitics of a T.V commercial, because it makes the viewers feel nostalgic through use of intertextuality, through use of all the childrens T.V characters.

Welcome To Our Group Blog!

Welcome to Mark and Catherine's A2 group blog.

In this blog, we will post all of our media coursework related things, while we work towards making our music video, and the other bits of coursework we decide to do from the choices we have.

Mark and Catherine.