Looking into Similar Products

After deciding I wanted to shoot a video that was a bit more true to life and more about the harsh reality of the society we live in I decided to start looking at music videos with similar story lines. Not only would these videos give me ideas for shooting styles and themes for my own video but they may also lead to to artists who produce music with the right feel that I'm looking for.

The first video I looked at was 'The A Team' by Ed Sheeran. It follows the life of a homeless female that turns to prostituion to make money; when she gets the money she then spends it on drugs leading her into a downwards spiral. The video starts with a young girl crying over a dead body the end is poignaint because the audience realise that the girl lying on the floor at the begining, dead is the girl we follow through the video and it is her spirit that is looking over the body after she dies of a drug overdose.

Another song I looked at was You're Too Young by Lucy Spraggan. The song is about a young girl who takes the wrong path in life, getting kicked out of shcool, involved in crime and getting into a relationship with a 'bad boy' who is into drugs and has many relationships at one time. The song is about the journey to her death after she gets into a fight with another female and ends up getting stabbed by her. The girl that stabs her is actually her dates girlfriend. The video visits the harsh reality of choosing the wrong path in life.  

Shooting Styles

At the weekend I saw the Sainsburys 2013 Christmas advert; 'Christmas in a Day' The advert, like the music videos I have been watching, had a big emotional impact on it's audience. The advert was directed by Oscar-winning Kevin Macdonald.He created a 45 minute festive film for Sainsbury's to be released on YouTube week comensing 18.11.13. Macdonald collected various christmas home videos from across the UK and collated them to create a short film - he also created a 3 minute teaser advert before the film was released.

The 3 minute teaser includes emotive footage; including, a man eating Christmas dinner alone and a dad coming home from Afgahnistan to surprise his children on Christmas day. This realtes to the theme I want for my music video becuase it has a hard hitting, realistic, emotional impact on the audience.
 

It wasn't just the theme and the impact of the advert that attracted me but also the style, I like that they were home videos included in the filming and clearly not set up situations; this gave it a much more realistic feel increasing the emotional impact.
Read more: http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/ad-day-sainsburys-christmas-day-will-bring-tears-your-eyes-153935

Hozier: Take Me To Church

In class Mr. Buckmaster showed us a music video: Hozier, Take Me To Church.

Ireland's State noted that the video, directed by Brendan Canty, echoes the wave of violence currently plaguing the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Russia. The songs lyrics speak of the harsh reality of religious view on homosexuality in many places: "Every Sunday's getting more bleak / A fresh poison each week / 'We were born sick,' you heard them say it". Although these views are considered very outdated in many places these opinions are still practised in many places across the globe.

I like the video because it shows the harsh reality of many societies and opinions; it doesn't sugar coat the situation. The hard hitting impact of the video, gives the song a lot of power over the audience because it very quickly makes people realise the cruel truth about things that Homosexual populations have face in certain societies.

I also like the colour treatment of the music video; I think the black and white video takes away any distractions. The audience’s attention isn't drawn to any insignificant parts of the scenes. I think it signifies that the shooting of the video is not the important part of the video but the message it is trying to send. Also, the black and white colour treatment helps to prevent and other difference the characters may have being introduced to the audience, by all being very plain it almost takes away their individuality.

Things that I will be taking from this video and applying to my own production are:

· The use of colour treatment and the impact it has on the message of the story

· The hard hitting effect of the story

· The controversial manner of the video

I will use this video as the first influence into similar products that I will be looking into to.

Changing my idea

After some thought I have decided to change my initial production idea. I have been considering this for a while and during Friday's lesson I made a final decision. I will still be doing the music video brief however. I have changed the theme song and story line of the music video but, I have not yet finalised my new idea.

Reasons for changing my initial idea: 

• I thought my first idea about someone perusing love and then succeeding was too cliche and predictable
• I felt the idea was maybe a bit hard to follow and that the audience may not understand the significance of shadows and empty seat e.t.c. (Signifying that he is looking for someone/missing someone) 
• I didn't think my song choice linked to my story line strongly enough. The lyrics of 'Clouds' are slightly hard to interpret and slightly contradict themselves.
• Finally, I decided I wanted to explore a completely different genre of media (my AS production was the opening sequence of a rom com and this too was a romance/love based story). This year I want to explore a controversial and slightly more 'gritty' side of media. 

Audience Research - A Liar's Autobiography

I looked into audience research to see how other markets have promoted their media products and to get information about how best to promote my production. I looked on the BFI website to research case studies that they had produced on the ways that they promoted texts.
One case study that I found was based on "A Liar's Autobiography", an animated, factually incorrect biography of Graham Arthur Chapman, one of the founding members of the comedy group Monty Python. From the research I learnt of different ways they promoted their product and therefore got useful information about how I could promote my own media product. Here are my main finding from the research:

Marketing Approach:

• The marketing strategy was straight away decided to be based upon the Monthy Python popularity and legacy
• They wanted to appeal to younger audiences; those generations who may have heard of Monthy Python from their parents
• They didn't want the animated film to move too far away from the Monthy Python fans, they wanted to attract a new audience as well as keeping the loyal fans interested to appeal to big sector of the public.

Target Audience:

• They created two target audience; the 'core' audience and the 'broad' audience

Core:

• 35+ years, male  - loyal  fans and those who grew up watching the series
• 20+ years, male and female - animated enthusiasts and professionals: both old enough to have grown up with the series and young enough to be enthusiastic about animation
• 25+ years male and female art house audiences

Broad:

• 30+ years principally males but females too - fans of British comedy
• 25+ years male and female, may not have been film fans but heard about them through publicity

Overall Distribution and Marketing Strategies:

• simultaneous theatrical and VOD release, closely followed by DVD and BD release
• Support from Adobe
• www.liarsautobiography.com Official website an interactive and innovative site; it received over 13k unique visitors in the UK.
• www.facebook.com/aliarsautobiographymovie Official Facebook Page: became the main ‘hub’
  for all on line activity and distribution of an array of content: including clips, links to YT videos e.t.c.

Conclusion:

• I need to decide what genre and style my music video is so when marketing the single I can aim it at the right audience.
• I then need to decide specifics of my audience (age, gender, social group e.t.c.) for both a broad audience and a core audience. By aiming my production at two audiences I can get as broad audience as possible.
• I then need to decide suitable ways to market my production - this will be connected to the target audience criteria (e.g. am I aiming it at the 'online generation'?

To read up on their audience research Even further visit and click on the top left link in the table ('A Liar's Autobiography) http://www.bfi.org.uk/film-industry/lottery-funding-distribution/insight-reports-case-studies-audience-research/new-ways-reaching-audiences-distribution

Planning My Time

In class we have made a rough plan of what we need to do and when we plan on doing it by, I will edit this copy as I move ontp different stages and complete differnet areas of the course.

I have also created a detailed breakdown of each scene and dated what time I will be doing differnet thuings; see a copy below: