Actor Analysis

We are having 2 main characters in our music video. The first will be our artist Richard Lown played by Micheal Jordan. The second will be a girl who he is spending his last day with and she will be played by Sian Thompson. These are our actors

The basic storyline of our video will be that she has to leave and he wants to spend her last day together. The performance aspects of our video will be him looking back and rememebering this day.

Jack Johnson Digipack analysis

In Between Dreams was the debut album from Jack Johnson. The cover is very simple using only 2 colors, the yellow and green. It creates a silhouette like image with the yellow being the light from the sun. Johnson is only seen very small compared to the tree and we cannot see his face making it more mysterious but also gives the impression that he is less about his image and more about his music. He can be seen with his guitar a prominent feature in his music and this gives him the credibility as a musician. The font is relatively small and simple again reflecting the simplicity of his music. The slight view of the sea in the background represents his home town of Hawaii but also adds a sense of tranquillity and relaxation. The image of his guitar emphasizes the genre of his music and is a running theme throughout all texts by Jack Johnson. 

The back cover again is yellow and black creating the silhouette effect and the font is simple. The composition of the texts mirrors the branch and creates a balanced layout.
The spine also follows the theme of the whole album. The small print offers the audience other platforms to find music and special features; something that we would ideally like to mimic.

This is a contrasting inlay compared to the one seen above. It shows a collage of photographs from the music making progress and it almost a "behind the scenes" look. It confirms Johnson as a credible artist and someone who is involved in all aspects of his music. It also has a "thankyou" section which helps connect with the audience.

We are beginning to start organizing our actors for our day filming. So far this is what we have achieved.

Costume and Props

We has a discussion today about the costume that we want our artist and the girl in the video to wear and the props that we want to use.

John Mayer Digipack analysis

This is the cover and one of the inlays of John Mayer's album "Room for Squares". Compared to the last album of his tht i looked at you can see that this one has a much brighter color pallete using orange and yellow tones. On the front cover there is no eye contact with the camera which is not challenging to the audience. He is also dressed very casually making him seem very relaxed and laid back. Also Mayer is featured in the left third of the screen which again does not challenge the audience. He is sitting down which adds to the relaxed approach of the cover. His guitar is featuerd which imidietely links the artist to the Indie genre. The division of the cover into smaller squares links to the title of the album "Room for Sqaures" and creates an interesting way of dividing up the page. The black emboldened writing contrasts with the stark white backgroud that it has been placed upon but lso contrasts with the warmer yellow color scheme that is seen throughout the rest of the digipack.

The inlay includes thankyou sections which helps the artist connect with their audience and maybe even thank them for buying the record. The photos follow the color scheme and again the guitar is featured. The overlapping photos creates a square linking wit the title. However in the lower photo we see Mayer directly adress the camera but in a playful way with a slight smile so again this is not challenging the audience. The lighting in the photos seems natural and bright which is more suggestive of happiness.

This is the back cover of the album. Again we see the black writing on the plain white background which makes the song titles easy to read. The squares that can be seen make up the shape of the periodic table which links to science. This I think implies that there is a science to art and music but also includes the sqaures that are mentioned in the title of the album. Even the colors match those of the color scheme. The legal small print on the album is inbetween the two sections of the table where there would normally be writing on a scientific version of the table.This creates an almost accurate representation of the table. However the squares are empty which creates a simpler and more basic pattern and almost reflects the pattern on the cover of the album. The barcode is situated in an unuasual place (we would expect to find it at the bottom of the cover somewhere). This may be so it does not interfere with the table of sqaures that we see.  

This is the CD artwork and again shows the periodic table but this time in its entirity with all the elements being labelled in the boxes. Also although the orange keeps the color scheme it is brighter and less soft and against the black background creates a greater contrast. The text is also in orange making it stand out against the black background. The black background itself creates contrast witht the rest of the album which contains very little black. Even though this is the case it does not create sadness as one may thinks. The website is displayed on the disc showing the other platforms that the music can be consumed on. There are also lables and small print round the bottom of the disc which confirm its credibility as a CD

Filming a guitar solo

This music video is contains a memorable guitar solo in which slash appears out of the sea and plays whilst standing on water.

There is strong emphasis on the guitar and at 8.18 a close up shot of the body and lower neck of the guitar gives focus to his fingers and the playing of the guitar. This could give the audience the idea of learning the solo from the video as well as displaying Slash as a credible artist.
The shots are constantly moving but does have a slower cutting rate. This almost mimics the playing of the guitar as it is constant and smooth.
The choice of color filter also matches the lacquer on the guitar and against the black costume of Slash again brings attention to the guitar which becomes the main focus of this particular sequence.

Location photographs

This is frinton beach that we would like to film at. We would like to film the majority of the performance shots on the beach and also amongst the rocks. Because this is a public place we would not have to seek permission to use it but we will have to be more careful as to not have unwanted people invading our shots. Filming outside also means we will have to be careful with the weather and protect the equipment if it begons to rain.

This beach would be the ideal space to film the candlelit beach performance section of our video as there is a vast amount of sand and the beach wall is behind it which would be perfect for us to film higher angled shots. We do however realise because we are filming this outside nearer night time we will have to sort out a means of lighting the scene as we know that when the footage is exported, it becomes darker. We think we may have to get a battery pack to then plug spot lights into to light the artist.

We also want to film some of the performance elements of our video sitting on top of some beach huts. We will take the appropriate health and safety precautions when doing this. 

We will not be filming the entire video on the beach. We want to have some elements in the pavilion shown above as well as on the grass and in the town of frinton. Again because this is public we will not need permission to film here.

Location Filming

 Wanting to film on a beach we wanted to look at a similar product that effectively films at a beach. The long establishing shot at 0.11 shows a "postcard" shot of the beach. In our video we want to create a romantic setting for our artist. Framing the beach shot and frequently returning to it will emphasize the romantic setting and enhance the relationship between our characters.

The slight sepia color filter when filming on the sand of the beach highlights the sun rise and gives the video a softer overall look. It also gives the shots a yellowish tint much like the color of the sand on the beach.

The performance part of the video is soley set on the beach with mid and long shots from the back of the artist. This creates shadows and emphasizes the sun and the water. This is something that we want to emulate in the performance part of our video

Planning meeting

Our planning meeting discussing shot lists and locations for our music video.

Looking at Filming Preludes

This is a good example of the story before the music video that we would like to include in our music video. Although it helps set up the story it doesn't give too much away and it leaves the audiences asking questions adhering to the enigma code. It is filmed similar to how a film would be filmed.
It uses a lot of close up shots of hands and faces which enhances her emotions. This is something that we want to take in and use for our story to amplify the emotions of our artists. It includes diagetic sound that adds to the movie concept of the video. The slower cutting rate sets the prelude apart from the music video which usually will have a faster cutting rate.

The use of the prelude gives meaning to the title f the song without detracting from the performance. It also avoids having to explain the storyline in the music section of the video. 

This prelude is around 50 seconds long. I don't think that we will have ours this long just due to planning and time restraints on filming. 

Audience comments of song

After playing our song to the rest of our class, we asked them what they would include in the music video that we would create.

These are the results that we got:

1. -girl he's singing to, walking about singing to a girl, "calling out" to her

2. -sunset (low lighting), fields, country girls, he sings about her but not too her

3. -happy and upbeat, urban, love song to or about a girl, dancing

4. -band playing from the start, a guy singing to a girl, but cant see him

5. -acoustic guitar, unique voice, mellow, slow, indie rock, love, relaxing

6. -city scene, see a girl (with hazel eyes), maybe bumps into her a lot, singing as walking, he pictures her in his head, flashbacks, smiling at each other, tries to ask her out but always gets cut off

7. -guitar (acoustic), sun, drums, love, eyes, beach

8.- urban (maybe cambridge), black and white, looking out of the window, shirt (tie?), guitar- cutting to electric guitar being played by someone else, no girl (maybe photograph), shot of him performing in bar/cafe, following a day, time shots of different views walking around, outdoors but city



We are still going with the idea that we will film at the beach but we will take the idea of following the day, so starting in the morning and ending in the evening. We will also have guitars as a prominent feature of the music video. This is also a huge feature of videos in the indie genre.

Ideal Audience Member

Idea Audience Member on Prezi

This explains our ideal audience member for the genre of Indie. 

Lyrics and inspiration

This is an email sent by the artist we are using giving us the lyrics to the song we chose. He also explains the inspiration behind the lyrics in the hope that we could develop some more ideas for the story of our video.

Our Artist

John Mayer- looking at integrating storylines

Steve Archer suggested that "often music videos will cut between a narrative and a performance of the song. Sometimes the artist (especially the singer) will be park of the story, acting as a narrator and participant at the same time. But it is the lip synch close-up and the miming of playing instruments that remains at the heart of the music videos as if to assure us that the band really can kick it." This is why integrating the storyline well into the performance aspects of the video is crucial and is something that we will definitely be using in our own video.

• First of all, the video has a short introduction with diagetic sound to set the location and the tone of the video, containing several establishing shots of a city scene which then contrasts with the country and rural setting of the rest of the video. As a group we were considering including this again to help establish the story of the video and introduce the artist and the characters of the video to the audience. 
• The artist plays the only role in the video which is himself which almost helps the audience get to know him better as he can be himself when he is alone, but also contributes to the lyrics of the video and his "shadow days" of being alone. 
• There is a mid profile shot of Mayer in the car and him singing along to the radio which happens to be his own song which I think is a really original way of combining both performance and story in one shot. 
• Overall the story is shown through a montage of establishing shots of the scenery which creates a good and effective way of setting the story apart from the performance; however cross cutting between them and the performance helps keep the video fluid and creating a good blend between performance and story. I don't think however that we would use this sort of technique purely because we dont have the means to shoot lots of locations or have the really eyecatching surroundings to shoot in
• The story includes him as a musician buying and playing the guitar but not as a performer which could connect to the type of audience that he attracts as many of them may be guitarists. This also helps us connect with him, showing his passion for music and guitars and we almost see him at his most open and vulnerable, especially at 1.17 where the slightly low angled mid shot across the bed shows him playing the guitar alone in a motel room
• The overall story of the video shows him as a "regular" man, going into the rural depths of america and not having to worry about being spotted or noticed by fans like he would in the city. It is an escape to him and he enjoys getting away from the hustle and bustle of the city