Costume Update

Here, is a more accurate representation of what we want our artist to look like:

We are still looking to show a sexual element and for our artist to be edgy but we aren't silhouetting anymore and their faces will be more visible. 

Therefore we have decided to make Genny's costume more naturalistic. Here is an example:

This costume would be used for the light-beam set showing Genny at medium and long range. It makes her look sexy but the colour scheme suggests a dark subtle undertone.

Hailee Steinfeld, Grey - Starving ft. Zedd

Plain black bra with fish net top

Cheryl Cole, Fight For This Love

Leather Trousers

This next idea would be for the other shots of Genny where there are close ups of her with some shadow and material floating around her. By wearing a top that sits off the shoulders, we will be able to film from the top of the shoulders and above to make it seem as if she is nude. This helps to promote her sexuality and confidence.

             

Costume

We knew that Genny would wear a low cut top such as a bando in the close up shadow shot, but we still needed to find some sort of fishnet top for the long shots of Genny in the light beam corridor.

At first, we thought that this top was perfect because it was tight and long-sleeved, but then we decided that it was too see through.

This top was long-sleeved, tight and went well with skirts and tights.

We wanted both David and Megan to be coordinated with their costumes and the song suggests a hip-hop styled costume. David would wear black trackies with a red top and Megan would wear red trackies with a black bando.

Timelining

Time	Lyrics	Screen
0:00	Home is where the heart is, and I gave it to you in a paper bag	Medium shot of artist under spotlight. Everything else black. Light capturing in strange ways.
0:06	Even though it's tarnished You told me it's the best you ever had, You got my...	Close up on artist. Same set as prior.
0:13	secret combination And I don't be giving that out easily, With my...	Wide shot of two dancers walking closer to each other in front of a white screen.
0:20	deep dedication You can tell that you were brought the same for me	Medium close up of artist under light. Artist moving neck and hands in a provocative way, then looks back at camera.
0:27	*Music build up*	Strobe on and off between artist and dancers. Strobe effect speeds up as music builds up.
0:39	So please don’t	Close up on artist’s lips under spotlight.
0:40	Let go, cause you know, exactly what we’ve found	Wide shot of dancers in front of white screen performing dance.
0:46	So please don't let go, my darling, you keep me hooked up underground	Wide shot of artist in light beam corridor performing towards the camera and camera follows back.
0:53	ground (repeats)	Letterbox between wide shot of dancers and close up on artist’s lips. Dancers in the middle and artist split on the outside.
1:00	Gonna be you	Letterbox moves so that only dancers can be seen performing.
1:06	In you’re big house on the hills	Long shot of artist in light beam corridor, camera slowly zooming in
1:09	Where(repeats)	editing used to make artist look as though there is a malfunction.
1:10	you keep your dollar bills	Camera still zooming in to artist comes to a stop.
1:13	And you stashed my heart somewhere in the dark Keep it safe I know you will	Wide shot/Close ups of dancers performing dance. Moving from slow motion to normal pace.
1:20	know you will, know you will	Close up in light beam corridor.
1:25	I know you will...meant to be	Editing merges close up of artist miming the lyrics with the dance. Eventually merges back out to artist where she mimes line
1:30	*Music*	Editing done in such a way it cuts to black on every 5th beat. Cuts between dancers and extreme close ups of artist in spotlight set.
1:43	Rolling with the punches So they won't get inside our happiness	Wide shot of artist inside transparent cube performing to camera.
1:48	uh (repeats)	Cut looking like a malfunction between artist and black smoke filling cube.
1:49	Love is always hunted But you're white rose is soaring through my tear	Intense shots of dancers.
1:54	Cause you know you give me something Yeah you give me exactly what I need	Medium shot of artist in cube whilst smoke filling up.
2:01	Got my blood pumping  You know you always draw more blood, I bleed	Intense shots of dancers.
2:07	*Music build up*	Medium shot of artist in light beam corridor. Lights flashing on and off to music.
2:13	*Music build up*	Artist under spotlight with strobes whilst moving in seductive way.
2:19	So please don’t let go, cause you know, exactly what we found	Wide/close up shots of dancers
2:25	So please don't let go, my darling You keep me hooked up underground	Close up of artist against smoke filling cube.
2:32	ground (repeats)	Letterbox between wide shot of dancers and close up on artist’s lips. Dancers in the middle and artist split on the outside.
2:38	Gonna be you	Letterbox moves so that only dancers can be seen performing. Strobe lights start to increase.
2:45	*Music*	Cut to black every 3 beats. Moves between close up of artist in different set locations and close up on dancers.
2:58	you and me	close up under spotlight of artist.
3:01	gonna be everything you ever dreamed	Medium close up of artist in smoke filled cube.
3:04	gonna be you and me	medium shot of artist in light beam corridor. Lights flashing to beat of music.
3:08	gonna be everything and everything we’re meant to be	Wide shot of dancers in front of white screen together and white screen turns off. End.

Polydor Records

Polydor Records, operating as a part of Universal music group, is a British Record label that has a long and prestigious music history. Founded in Germany in 1946 as a Gramophone label, it preceded to find and produce all different types of music, where it later branched out to the UK 10 years later. Polydor came to the UK coincidentally at the same time as the rock'n'roll revolution that was 'transforming the musical landscape and establishing youth culture.' Currently, the label has a range of artists from Ellie Goulding to the Rolling Stones. I was fortunate enough to meet two video commissioners from Polydor Records who educated me on the reality of the music industry business :

• When they originally meet with the director, they have to determine several questions. The main one is Who the artist is? This is important as they have to ensure they maintain the artist's image through the music video, etc.
• Sometimes, artists have a very clear idea of what they want in their video. It is hard sometimes especially when the idea is not feasible as artists can be tricky to work with. When this happens, it is their job to try and steer them in the right direction. 
• Important to remember that a music video gives fans a sense of who the artist is as it is how they become relatable.
• Rare for music videos to go well. Often lots of problems.
• Finance team decides budget...music video ranges between £5,000...£500,000
• Sponsorship and product placement is used to help fund the music video.
• The record label is constantly looking for more people to ensure diversity.
• Important to make sure that the beginning of the video is exciting to make sure audience stays interested.
• Music video takes roughly 1-2 days of shooting.
• 1-2 months to make the entire video from start to finish. 
• The generic structure for a pop video is a build up to a finale with a party.

After this, the women from Polydor records showed us several examples of videos they had produced. Here are some examples : 

Feedback from Pitch

After pitching our music video idea to the group, we got several positive and negative feedbacks.

Positives : 

• Liked the spinning colour wheel as emphasised effect of visuals.
• Liked the light beam box as a performance space.
• They thought that the cast was perfectly appropriate.
• They liked our colour scheme as it correlated with the pop theme.
• The silhouette idea was going to look aesthetically successful.

Negatives :

• Balloons did not work with the darkness of the video, too childish.
• The water drums were going to be very challenging as we would need to clean up and reset everytime the drums were hit. 
• Concept was still not fully there. Needs more depth.
• Needed to focus on doing less sets, but more with them.

After this, we sat down as a group and bounced ideas around to see how we could improve our music video ideas. To try and determine our concept, we explored the idea of using this music video as a transformation for the artist (like Miley Cyrus underwent). This would have been shown through colour and lighting chaos where the colour scheme of the video would go from white to dark. However, we did not think this kind of concept would work for our video as it was too simplistic and slow.

We also spoke about the use of letter boxing. We toyed with the idea of potentially having the artist literally climb out from the screen and into the letterbox. However, we were unsure of how this would turn out in editing, so we decided to keep with the letter boxing and potentially split screens during the editing process. 

After having more conversations with people, we also came to the conclusion that the dance element would need to be more prominent and tell a story. This story could be part of our concept. We all collectively decided to make the dancers perform a contemporary styled dance that was quite aggressive, that would reflect the lyrics of the song. As well as this, we also decided to go down a more black and white path. As the song is relatively dark, we felt it was best to ignore colours and focus on having intense white lights that still have an imposing effect. This also meant that we got rid of the spinning colour wheel as colour was no longer an important element of our video. 

This was our plan so far.

Music Video Pitch

Choosing the right song

Originally, we all settled with the song Crazy Dream by Tom Misch. However, we found the song was quite slow paced for what we were aiming to do with our concepts. We attempted to speed it up and see if this helped, but it still wasn't following our concept/theme. After spending quite a bit of time trying to work around it, we decided to start again and come up with a song and concept that works with it.

We proposed several songs but we did not feel passionate about any of them and we felt this was critical for ensuring a successful music video. Whilst looking in my music library, I found the song You & Me (Baauer remix) by Disclosure. This was perfect as it had the speed we were looking for as well as the perfect balance between lyrics and music. We immediately gravitated towards the song and decided this was going to be our choice.

After this, it was time to come up with our final concept and ideas for the music video. 

Meeting the team

Almost immediately after returning from the summer holidays, it was time to pick our groups for this term's coursework. As a class, we decided the best way to determine our groups would be to talk one on one with everyone in the class to try and see who had similar ideas/themes/concepts to ours. 

This turned out to be a very successful method as it was clear who was gravitating towards who. My group members turned out to be : 

Ben South

Dasha Koenig 

Haydon Downing 

The reason we specifically paired together as we all chose similar themed concepts. For example, we all wanted to focus on the aesthetics of the music video through the importance of lighting and artistic direction as well as have a fast paced club-like song. Ben, Dasha and Haydon liked my concept for Crazy Dream as well as the song itself. We decided to go with this song and see how we could potentially merge some of our ideas into mine. 

The Brief

The Brief

A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

                         

a website homepage for the band;

a cover for its release as part of a digipak (CD/DVD package);

a magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD package).

2. Make sure your three initial ideas/treatments are uploaded.

  

3. For each of the initial ideas, carry out and illustrate your research into real artists of a similar type:

• Images
• Websites – artists, record companies, fansites, social network sites
• Music videos
• Soundcloud etc

Music and it's relevance today

During the summer, I visited a record shop in Notting Hill to try and answer different questions I had about the music industry. This is what I found. 

Music Video Idea No.3

Sweet Transvestite - Tim Curry 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR6wKRWFOoE

Tim Curry 

Tim Curry, 70, is an English actor, voice actor and singer. His rise to fame was a result from playing Dr Frank-N-Furter in the musical Rocky Horror Picture Show(where this chosen song is taken from). Curry's main focus was on acting, however he did have some success with his musical career. Curry released his first album in 1978 called Read My Lips. The album was a mix of covers and original songs performed in diverse genres. Curry released 3 albums in his career and went on several tours, however it is clear over his career so far that his main focus was not music. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Curry

There is an English website all about Tim Curry. The website is basic but holds all the latest news about Curry and promotes things like meet and greets and latest shows. The site is one of the first options you get when you type Tim Curry into Google making it helpful for any fans to know all about Curry at the click of a mouse. 
http://www.timcurry.co.uk/

Unfortunately, Curry has suffered from some major health implications that have forced him to become disabled. This has evidently caused him harm as it has restricted him to what he is able to do performance wise. 

My music video idea : 

For this song, I will be focusing on creating an image for a female solo artist. As I have chosen to do something a bit controversial, I needed to ensure that the name of the artist correlated with their image. After coming up with several options, I decided to go with Victor Victoria, taking inspiration from the film. 

I wanted to try something different with the song as I didn't want to take too much inspiration from the film. I decided to make the transvestite female instead of male which I felt worked as it was still upholding the meaning of the song. I want the traits of my artist to be similar to Lady Gaga's in the song You and I like the aggression and passion. However, physically, I want the artist to look similar to Victor Victoria by having slicked back hair and a clean cut suit. 

The music video will have no narrative, only a performance. There will be several different sets :

• The audience is not introduced to the artist immediately. They are teased with close ups of lips, painted nails, heels to give the impression it is a man dressed as a woman and then a spotlight reveals the female transvestite. The use of UV lights but just have the lips. 

• One set would be in the theatre where it would appear as a performance with a band. There will be a lot of red and a lot of spotlight use. Possible use of a theatre curtain or something similar.

• There will be a runway kind of set up with a heart shape made of bulbs at the back. 

• A lip throne like set will also be made for the artist to lie across with the rocky horror lips all over the walls.

• There will be lots of close ups like the lips in rocky horror.

• Several shots of the artist being engulfed by men's attention. 

• All the dancers are men with red lipstick to confuse the audience wearing the same outfit as the artist.

• The lyric 'anticipation' all the mens lips light up and they say it together.

To experiment how I would attempt to convey this artist through things like social media, I attempted to create a website. As the idea was relatively original, I had some trouble trying to create a basic website that conveyed the artist's image. I ensured I remembered that the artist was a female but was conveying herself as a man. This was what I created : 

I chose to contrast the name 'Victor Victoria' by using different fonts as I wanted to highlight to the audience that there is almost two parts to the artist. I decided to use a suit for the main image as I wanted to mainly convey the masculinity, however, I edited a red bowtie on top of the black one to again juxtapose and give the impression of a dual act. 

As well as the website, I created a digipak to further experiment how I would portray this artist. This is what I came up with : 

As I experimented with the masculinity in the website, I wanted to try something more feminine. I used the Rocky Horror Picture Show lips as it linked in well with the video, song and image. The contrast in fonts again illustrate a contrast in character. I chose to name the album masquerade as it furthers this. One thing I would like to try and do is add something slightly masculine to the image, like how I did with the website.