Institution targets

I used the Sky Guide TV Listings website to look at the music channels and their scheduling, so that I could decide where I would exhibit my music video on the television. 

I've chosen to aim for Fridays between 5pm and 9pm because this is usually when young people are likely to be getting ready to go out for the evening or having people over and, in both of these situations, my target audience are likely to have music videos playing in the background. 

These are the channels available:

The genre of music television channel that I should schedule my music video for is pop/mixed hits (because Toby's brand identity isn't anything alternative so I would say that his style is quite 'mainstream') which, according to Wikipedia, consists of 4Music, Bliss, The Box, Capital TV, Chart Show TV, Heat, MTV Hits, MTV Live, MTV Music, Planet Pop, Smash Hits, Starz TV, VH1 and Viva.  Therefore, any of these channels would be appropriate for my music video to be exhibited. 

Ed Sheeran photographs

I have chosen these photographs to look at for inspiration for a concept for Toby's photoshoot, due the similarities in his and Ed Sheeran's brand identities. I find the first two images especially aesthetically pleasing, and I may go with this idea of experimenting with reflections, although I definitely would like to have a guitar visible in the photographs in order to display Toby's acoustic singer-songwriter genre to his audience. I also think I should dress him in casual clothing in order to conform to his brand identity. 

My next steps are to plan out an exact concept (props/lighting/costume/angles/location etc.)  and then arrange a suitable time with Toby.

Identifying a focus group

In order to identify a focus group consisting of my target audience, I posted a status on Facebook briefly explaining what I'm aiming to do and requesting males and females between the ages of 14 and 20 to take part. I decided to recruit on a social networking site because, typically, people of this age group are digitally literate and so check their news feeds regularly and are also probably more likely to offer their assistance if it's organised in an informal manner, as they are perhaps not as familiar and/or comfortable with a professional/serious environment as an older audience may be. With this in mind, once enough people have replied (ideally, I would like an equal number of males and females, and a range in ages), I will create a Facebook group for my focus group where we can attempt to organise meetings during which I can present my ideas/work to them and film their feedback OR I could simply link things from my blog and/or other websites onto the page and use the poll tool to collect feedback (or simply post questions). 

Production plan

I am going to create a music video, and its two ancillary products; the artist's website homepage and an album digipak. In order to achieve this, during the next 2-3 months, I need to:

Audience

• Identify a focus group in the near future so that I can continuously come back to them for feedback throughout the production of my products. I want this focus group to be both males and females between the ages of 14 and 20, so that it's appropriate to my target audience. I also want the focus group to consist of people that are interested in the acoustic, easy-listening genre of music. 
• Meet with my focus group to present my 'Brief 1:Initial Ideas' Prezi, and collect any opinions and ideas they can provide me with.
• Collect more data for my target market survey, create graphs from the results using Microsoft Edexcel, and then present these on my blog. I could ask students in the school and 6th form to complete it during form time, as these ages would conform to my target audience.

Music video

• Make sure I've got my basic storyline/concept figured out for the music video, draw out a rough storyboard and present the idea(s) to my focus group. Then I can proceed by conducting an interview with one or two of them, in order to find out which aspects of the idea(s) pleased them and which they believe could be adapted. 
• Book a recording studio and record the song. (Research the best way to store the recording so that I can easily upload it onto iMovie.)
• Create an animatic of the music video (which I can also get feedback from my focus group on).

Artist's website homepage

• Gather some information from Toby about his personal/music life etc. so that I can begin creating his website homepage (including some photographs).
• Create my template (colour scheme, roughly where everything will go etc.)

Digipak

• Find a photographer and begin planning a photoshoot (theme, costume, location, lighting etc.) to use for the album cover. I also need to decide whether I want to conduct two separate photoshoots so that I can use the other set to illustrate the website homepage. If so, I need to coordinate the colour scheme etc. with that of the website.

I think that, before I do any planning/production with Toby, I need to organise some sort of system with him so that I know when he's most likely to be busy and when he should be free to work each fortnight or so. This is due to his many commitments including A levels, the lead role in We Will Rock You, the lead male role in Hairspray, a role in Lord of the Flies, his job and university applications etc.

Lyrics

I met up with Toby today so he could play/sing me his song and took a quick video on my phone to refer to. Here are the lyrics:

Come with me on the trip of your life

Don't look outside of my arms tonight

Hold me close, put your faith in me

And I'll hold you tight, I won't ever leave

Close your eyes

Come with me, tonight

And I'll be waiting

In that spot 

Where we used to meet

You can't lose me

You can't lose, lose me

Be my friend, be my lover

Be my one, and I'll be your other

Take my hand, lead me on

Push me down around to where I belong

It's not you, it's me

What did I do, was I just too bloody clingy?

All I want is for you to see

I'm not the kind of guy who would love and then leave you be

Now you're losing me

Now you're losing me

Life's a game, that's what they say

But I never knew 'til you told me straight

You played good like I knew you would

Kept me hooked right up until the final stage

Now's the time for me to fly

I hung around for you and I

That's the truth, you knew I would

But you shoot me down when all I did was for you

Now you're losing me

Now you're losing me

Now you've lost me

Now you've lost lost lost lost lost me

Update: Toby has decided a title for this song- 'Chances'

Classification of music videos

Click here for a news article featured on The Guardian's website that explains that the BBFC plans to introduce age classifications for music videos, due to pressure from parents concerned that they provide sexual imagery available to children online. So, in preparation, I need to make sure that my music video fits into the right guidelines in order for my target audience to enjoy it.

According to the British Board of Film Classification;

• U- should raise no significant issues in terms of discrimination, drugs, imitable behaviour, language, nudity, sex, threat or violence.
• PG- will not contain any theme which is inappropriate for a child, but can explore challenging issues such as bullying, bereavement or racism.
• 12A and 12- the overall tone of a film or video, and the way it makes an audience feel, affects the classification. Strong language may be passed (eg. 'f***') depending on the manner in which it is used, who is using the language, its frequency and any special contextual justification. Sex may be briefly and discreetly portrayed. Moderate violence and dangerous behaviour is allowed but it should not dwell on detail. 
• 15- may include strong language, frequent strong language (eg. 'f***'), portrayals of sexual activity, strong verbal references to sex, sexual nudity, brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence, discriminatory language or behaviour, and/or drug taking.
• 18- may contain strong issues such as very strong violence, frequent strong language (eg. 'f***') and/or very strong language (eg. 'c***'), strong portrayals of sexual activity, scenes of sexual violence, strong horror, strong blood and gore, real sex (in some circumstances), and/or discriminative language and behaviour.

Seeing as my target audience is 14-20 year olds, I need to make sure my music video comes under the 12/12A classification. 

Guidance for making music videos at A2

I found this PowerPoint presentation on the school's common files, and thought it would be helpful to embed in my blog so that I can come back to it and check that I'm not doing things that Fraser mentioned should be avoided at A2. 

Audience Types

• Passive= the product is received but the audience is not choosing to engage with it.
• Active= the choice is made to consume the product, and to engage with it.

• Preferred= the target audience whom the product is aimed at.
• Oppositional= the potential target audience whom an industry needs to persuade.

• Traditional= stick to safety and familiarity by watching videos on TV and buying CDs.
• Hedonist= take risks by watching/listening to new, different and challenging conventional music videos/music.
• Post-modern= use new ways of watching music videos/listening to music, such as streaming and parodying etc. 

The reading is how an audience receives a media product. If an audience has a negotiated reading of a music video, this means that it has multiple meanings and interpretations. 

My target audience:
Keeping in mind these audience types, I am aiming my product(s) at an active audience (they can communicate through social networking, leaving opinions about the product(s) and possibly making suggestions towards them) and a post-modern audience (as my target audience are adolescents/young adults, it would make sense that they are technically knowledgable and so use websites such as YouTube to watch music videos, and download an album via iTunes etc. I would also expect the video to be parodied if Toby were a more well-known artist). I wouldn't expect the audience to have a negotiated reading of the product because, the way we're planning it at the moment, we have a fairly simple and conventional concept in mind, although this may change. 

Music Video Genre

I created the following presentations to explore the genre and sub-genres of music videos, so that this could aid me in the types of conventions I need to make sure are included in my music video. The first focuses on sub-genres such as pop music, hip hop music and rock music, as well as Andrew Goodwin's theory and guidelines for music videos:



This second presentation is more in depth about the key features and conventions of music videos:



My next steps are to analyse videos by existing artists similar to mine (e.g. Ed Sheeran) and determine the conventions I will have to meet for Toby's specific genre. I could also create a moodboard with this knowledge of the sorts of props/colours/locations I should be using when I film.

How to Fold a Digipak

I also decided it would be helpful to have a quick look at how an album digipak is folded, as I'm not quite certain about how I'm going to do this. If I'm prepared in advance for this part of my brief, I'll avoid as much panic as possible when I'm more worried about deadlines. 

This site provides templates for digipaks and also allows you to view how they are folded, which is really helpful. I assume that, for my brief, I'm only supposed to create a '4 panel 1 tray' digipak so, when the time comes to make mine, I'll come back to this site and put it to good use.

Comparing Artists' Website Homepage Layouts

I looked at some existing artists' website homepages and roughly noted the layout on pieces of paper in order to compare them, and get an idea of what I need to include on Toby's website. Below are the links to the websites followed by pictures the rough layouts. 

Taylor Swift

Ed Sheeran

Michael Buble

So, according to these examples, the main elements I need to include in my artist's website homepage are:

• the artist's name at the top
• navigation bar to different pages (Home, About/Biography, News, Events/Live Dates/Tour, Media, Music/Lyrics, Contact/Connect/Forum, Store)
• 'Join Mailing List'
• advert for latest album(s)
• images of the artist
• links to the artists' official pages on social networking sites
• new music video
• the beginning of news articles about upcoming/recent events and appearances (with 'read more')
• the artist's latest tweets and/or Instagram uploads
• about the artist
• gallery of images and videos
• 'Launch Music Player'
• logo of record label and copyright at the bottom

Obviously, with Toby not being a big, successful, famous artist like the examples above, some of these elements may be hard to include or do much with. However, I can always try.

Research on How To Edit a Music Video

I've only ever edited an animatic for a music video, and I think it's going to be much more of a challenge to actually film one and make sure that the visuals and the music is in sync etc. With this in mind, I thought I'd research how to edit a music video to see if this will help me when I come to do mine. I also felt that YouTube would be the best source for this because I can easily follow what they're doing on the tutorial, as well as this being the centre for creative people creating and posting their own music videos.

Below is the best video I found, which is really helpful. It shows me that the easiest way to do it is to film the different scenes for the whole song (rather than just the parts when I want them) in order to make sure they're constantly in sync with the music. Then I can simply switch between the shots when I feel it will look good by deleting blocks and dragging the clips.

Research on lighting

I decided that I need to expand my knowledge on lighting (especially outside), as this is definitely not one of my strong points, and I don't want this to negatively affect my music video. So I've created this presentation in order to present the main lighting tips that will assist me in my work:

Survey

Here is my target market survey on music videos/artists. I have also posted the link to Facebook and Twitter and, once I've collected some results, I'll analyse the data.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Planning with Toby

I met with Toby (my artist) for lunch before I left for Mallorca, and discussed what I'd planned to do with him and also took any ideas that he had. Above are the notes I made but, in case they can't be read clearly on the image, I'll type it below as well:

DISTRIBUTION

• Brickmakers open mic night on Wednesdays- advertised on website that they'll record your set so you can have it on DVD
• Toby has a video from Sprowston's Got Talent (our school's annual talent competition) when he performed

MUSIC VIDEO IDEAS

• in the recording studio
• walking through forest/woods
• writing lyrics
• cinematographic shots of Mallorca

BRAND IDENTITY

• acoustic/chilled
• casual
• blazers
• hair quiff
• Ed Sheeran-y

PHOTOSHOOT

• Mark Cotter- school photographer
• Photography students eg. Morrighan
• advertise on Facebook (for photographer)?
• Photography lighting studio at Sprowston High

RECORDING STUDIOS

• Epic Studios in Norwich
• Plug Studios
• my friend's home studio

Pitch of my initial ideas

These are very basic ideas in order to act as a starting point, and also an outline of what I'm planning to do for my peers. 

The brief that I've chosen

After having a look at the briefs, I have chosen to explore brief one, which is to create a promotion package for the release of an album. This will include:

• a music promo video
• a website homepage for the artist(s)
• a cover for its release as part of a digipak (CD/DVD package)

An initial idea for the video is that I could take my video camera with me when I go on holiday to Majorca in about 6 weeks (12th August) and possibly get some interesting cinematography there? If I do this, I will probably choose an easy-going, fairly slow-paced music genre so that it's quite a pleasant, summery video.

I also know someone who has a recording studio in her home, and so I could use this space or a studio at Epic Studios to achieve some performance shots of the artist(s)?

My target audience is likely to be young people of both genders, and I'll be aiming to begin the release of a summer-friendly album that would be played in the car, at a barbecue or at the beach etc. 

The products will relate/support each other because, as well as having a colour scheme (probably light/pastel colours), I will take photographs as I film the video so that similar images/scenes are displayed in the video, on the website homepage and on the album cover. I'll also create a logo for the album and/or the artist(s). 

I'll use wix.com to create the website homepage and iMovie to edit the video.