Initial planning ideas

Group meeting and Discussion 1 25/09/13

Our group consists of myself, Emma Harris, Millie Cooper and Ella Sutherland. We chose to work together because we have similar tastes in music with artists incuding Jessie J, Ellie Goulding, Artic Monkey's and our chosen artist Nina Nesbitt.  Also, we all have different attributes we can offer to the group with Emma and Ella being skilled editors and skilled at  general camera work, Millie being a particularly good leader and director and myself passionate about performing in our video whilst wanting to help with camera work too. 

During our first meeting, we decided we were going to use 'Noserings & Shoestrings' by Nina Nesbitt, an artist of the Indie genre who is alternative with a niche target audience. This will hopefully allow us to expand the audience due to promoting our video. Noserings & Shoestrings has not been released by Nina Nesbitt as a single therefore it doesn't have an existing video in which our audience can compare it to. Although we also like the song, we decided we liked it even more due to the fact it doesn't have an existing video of which we may have been inspired by. Therefore, our music video will be the first version and have an original final outcome. 

We also discussed 10 main points which we then transfered in note form onto an A3 sheet of paper (as displayed below): 

Location ideas

We wish to shoot at a quirky seaside location with traditional romantic beach shots and also an arcade, possibly in Southend on Sea or Brighton which is fuelled by young people, also appealing to our target audience.

We aim to capture a raw performance in regards to our artist. We have initially planned to shoot the artist miming to the song in front of a blank white wall. This then does not draw too much focus onto the artist but the lyrics and narrative of the couple.


Mise en scene ideas

In regards to clothing, we want to capture a vintage vibe to harmonise with the Indie genre. We picture our female character dressed in a floral skirt with a baggy band t-shirt, a studded leather jacket, polished brogues and tights topped with messy hair, simplistic natural looking make-up and a beanie. Furthermore, we picture our 'misguided' male character to be dressed in a vintage shirt, a denim jacket, chino trousers and rugged trainers (something along those lines)

Iconography for our male character will include: alcohol bottles, cigarettes, cards, lighters, skateboards and an old guitar.

We picture our artist to dress very plainly in a white t-shirt or floral dress with eyeliner and a faded lipstick to establish her image. Iconography for the artist will only include the guitar she is playing.

Editing ideas

Because our chosen song is rather slow-paced we would like our editing style to be parallel, also slow-paced. However, we believe fast-paced editing will harmonise with the chorus which is only slightly faster than the verses. When the artist sings "woah-oh-oh-oh" and repeats it we aim to use a time-lapse to establish the couple arguing. We have a vision of people/cars/general life moving in a fast-paced motion as opposed to the couple in the centre of the frame fighting in real-time to present a juxtaposition of time. The idea of a time-lapse has been inspired by the video to We Found Love by Rihanna ft. Calvin Harris 

Cinematography ideas

We would like to use mid-shots of a combination of various angles of the artist singing which will be very simplistic therefore harmonising with the slow-paced editing. This allows the audience to focus less on the artists image and more on the actual lyrics of the song and narrative employed. We also discussed using a few close-up shots of the artist playing the guitar to conform to typical characteristics of the Indie genre

Music video theory we wish to apply

We have discussed following Goodwin's theoretical point of the relationship between the lyrics and visuals as that is what our narrative is based on. We also more than likely follow Goodwin's point of the editing being parallel to the pace of the song

Artist representation

Style of music video: Our video will be divided between a high narrative percentage (70%) and a performance element too (30%) A concept element is not necessary because we are not aiming to sell our audience an idea or theme. Our narrative consists of a deteriating relationship between a male and female actor due to the males alcohol addiction. It will support the lyrics "He's just misguided I think" and "He wears a bottle inside his vest" 
The artist will be singing about the couples relationship and how she is observing it

Target audience

Although our artists target audience is rather niche as she has only just started in the industry as an Indie artist, we aim for people aged 16-25 (particularly females who can relate to the song lyrics/our video content) to be our audience 

Research conducted

We have not yet conducted research concerning the music genre. However, we are aware of certain codes and conventions reoccurring in music videos of the Indie genre 

Codes and conventions of our music genre

By watching other videos of the Indie genre, we have noticed certain genre characteristics appear regularly including close-up shots of the artist playing guitar, panning shots of desolate locations (particularly fields) or buzzing market streets in London. We have noticed smoking is regularly glamourised too.

Group meeting and Discussion 2 30/09/13

In our second group meeting, we created a brief storyboard of our ideas for the opening of our music video. We have a vision of there being no sound and a fade into a shot of polaroid photos of the couple together having a laugh.


Also in our second group meeting, we discussed what we all personally thought the lyrics meant. This led to us briefly annotating the first few verses of the song which then triggered more ideas for what to include in our video.

After reflecting upon our previous group meeting, we discussed about whether using the beach location would be a. appropriate and b. achievable due to all group members having different commitments on different days. To replace our initial desired beach location, we believe certain locations in London would be easier to travel to and be more convenient. 

We identified that I will represent the group as the artist because I am passionate about performing. We also discussed who we would use as our couple to shoot. We needed two people who could commit to our filming hours whilst being a real-life couple as it would be easier for them to interact and act as if they are together experiencing different things together.

In this meeting we also discussed an idea for a panning long-shot consisting of the artist busking at a train station then for the couple to enter the shot and give the artist money. This shows a relationship between the artist and the couple whilst establishing that the artist is singing about her audience, therefore making her a more relatable figure, something we wish to achieve.