Music videos are a source of entertainment; they create an eye cathcing link to the band and the music video they are trying to sell. We really wanted to create an artist that we all really had a strong passion for already in the music industry. We wanted to create a quirky independant artist. So to do so we looked at such artists that influenced are music preferences such as 'The Vaccines'. We each took a cluster of artists/bands and found the most common themes and shots that we could create a link with throughout all the music videos. When first conducting the research we fould that many of the 'Indie Pop' music videos focused them around nature and natural imagery. We analysied a vast amount of music videos and decided that nature would be an aspect we would use as our main focus for our music video. Following on from the basis of our nature idea we deliberated and decided to have the main setting of the music video at the beach where we could focus on the enviroment around us. We took on board some of the improvements we had from our 'AS Project' 'Where's My Mr Right?'. Our main location for this opening scene was filmed in a house the un-natural lighting created a huge impact in the quality of our shots and made them seem dull and unprofessional. The natural light at the beach really emphasised the black and white footage at the beach it made the shots seem more dazzling and high quality even with the black and white effect.
'The Vaccines' music video for the song 'No Hope' was the basis of where our ideas developed from. We partically enjoyed the focus of the flowers throughout the music video. So we decided to pick a few certain aspects of nature to focus on in our location, being the waves and scenery on the beach. Linking back to the main theme of 'Indie Pop' videos based upon nature. In the 'No Hope' music video numerous shots of flowers were shown throughout in different locations and scenes. The flowers used emphaises the story the music video was trying to portray. We wanted to use this impact but by the use of waves, the movement of the waves inparticular. Each time a wave crashes its a different speed or movement which we wanted to represent the change in the females attitudes and feelings throughout the music video we were creating. Not only did we want the audience to follow the story of the characters but the waves also so we created a sense of different waves throughout the project. Some of the waves are seen to be harsh, some are shown to be pityful and lastly in the final clip of the music video the waves are the closing to the story just like the use of the flowers in the 'No Hope' video.
The Vaccines 'No Hope'
Elliot Guy 'Lover's Eyes'
However even though we did follow some typical forms and conventions of real life media products in our genre of music. We wanted to make our music video unique to us so we could create our own identity for our new artist. This is where the idea of the 'Red Balloon' devloped. We not only wanted our audience to focus on the theme of nature throughout the video but something that would be rare and individual to our 'Indie Pop' artist. We not only wanted to create a link between the music video we were prodcing and the digi-pak, but a link between our music video and it's audience. So we could produce something that would be incomparable to any other 'Indie Pop' artist/music video around. In our music video we wanted something that the audience would be able to remember and create the link between the object (balloon) and the artist without knowing the logo of the artist. This would overcome difficulties of the audience liking the song but not knowing or remembering what the artist was called or the album name. So by having such an iconic object in the video the audience would be able to particular remember it and find the album due to the red balloon.
When conducting our research we came across a music video called 'Waiting For My Chance To Come' by Noah And The Whale. This video was the first in our chosen genre that we found had a switch between black and white to colour. When analysing the video we thought the switches between colour were really effective we could clearly see a change in setting when the colour of the music video changed. On watching the music video we decided that this was something we wanted to incorprate into our own work. After discussing and putting all our ideas together from the research we decided on using the beach scenes in black and white to create a melancholy and isolated atmoshphere but when we switch to colour to have the different shots fast paced and joyful to fit in with the brightness of the shots compared to the black and white ones. We believed that the colour differences was something that would clearly show our target audience the difference we were portraying in each setting. This effect worked really well we were able to create a significant difference between our two settings and stories just like the 'Noah And The Whale' music video.
'Noah And The Whale'- Waiting For My Chance To Come
As a group we all looked at different artists in our chosen genre. In our research we payed particular attention to the typography used for the artist name and album. We found that in our genre of 'Indie Pop' that the typography used is usually bold but plain and still manages to be iconic. We tried many different style of texts to find the most sutibale one for our artist we ended up choosing 'Bookman Old Style' because the style followed the typical convenctions of the 'indie pop' genre. We also found during our research that many of the artists in this genre use the name of the group or individual as the logo. We followed this idea so we could make our artist as professional and realistic as possible. We really liked this idea and thought 'The Vaccines' logo was very effective as their target audience would straight away recongise the logo of the band. We wanted to do this for our own artist so the audience would not only be able to associate the red balloon from the music video but also the typography used for the artist. We used the same typography throughout the digipak and advert so the audiences association could be coherent.
ELLIOT GUY
However even though we followed many typical convenctions of a 'indie pop' artist we also challanged and developed some of them too. We found that normally in our chosen genres music videos and achillery texts they focus the products around the same sex as the artist or group. We wanted to challange this and create something that could be unique to the genre but not divert completely away from codes and conventions of our genre. We decided to have our artist as a male 'Elliot Guy' and base the artists achillery texts and music video around a female. We not only did this to challange the ideas of an 'indie pop' artist but also so we could reach out to the female gender in our target audience so they felt apart of the artist. We based the album cover, advert and music video all around a female with the red balloon. Creating a iconic image and reaching out to all our targer audiences. We really thought this was a successful idea and really captured what we wanted to portry.
When researching our genre we came across that in the adverts used for the artists the album cover is normlly used. We first decided that we would stray away from this idea but after trying numerous times to find an image that would be sutibale for the advert we decided to follow the original concept we found in our research. We got alot of our ideas and influences for the advert from 'Noah And The Whales' advert for the album 'First Day Of Spring. We recognised the same picture used from the ablum in the advert creating a direct link with the both products which is a clever and effective concept to follow. We also noticed the advert used pastle tones and colours alot of the image taken up with the sky. Luckily the image used on the 'Elliot Guy' album cover had a element of the sky in it too. We toned down the colour of the image so we could create the samel pastle effect as the 'Noah And The Whale' album which made the text on the advert stand out and effectively draw audiences attention to the stars and comments given to the artist. We kept the original colour of the red balloons in the advert so the brightness of them would draw audiences attention in to focus on the balloons and associate them with the muisc video.
'Noah And The Whale'- First Day Of Spring
'Elliot Guy'- The Root Of Memories
'Elliot Guy'- The Root Of Memories
