Attic location shots

The Attic space we are going to use is suitable and fitting for the alternative rock genre, as well as the dark lyrics of the song. This due to the dark lighting as well as the chairoscurro effect produced by the roof windows. Also the brick wall could be a reference to another influential alternative rock band 'Pink Floyd' and their album and film 'the wall' from which the iconic white brick wall originates from.

Aesthitically the attic may appeal to the audience as it is a derelict place and seems cold and gritty. The dusty floor and old beams also give a individual and unusually appealing look to the attic that the audience may enjoy.

using the attic is also beneficial for effects and practicalities. Due to the small space in the attic the performance shots will look claustrophobic connoting a gig like atmosphere. The lighting in the attic not only include the nature lighting from the windows but also a bright back light to produce sharp shadows and highlight the band. The back light also connoting a gig like atmosphere for the performance element of the video as it acts much like lighting on a stage.

How are contemporary media issues changing ‘the music video’?

The invention of music videos is normally accredited to 1970s band Queen, who, in November 1975, found they were unable to appear on BBC TV's Top Of The Pops due to tour commitments. Their solution to the problem was to spend two days and under £4,000 on recording a video for their latest single, 'Bohemian Rhapsody' to be shown in their place. It was a decision that inspired many other acts to do the same and by the early 1980s. But Queen were not the first band to do this. To attain that accolade they would have had to travel back a decade before.

The Beatles were always at the forefront of the technology of music. The same group that pioneered backward loops, the sitar, and feedback can also be said to have invented the music video. Therefore, on 23 November, 1965, they make a series of promotional films specifically designed to be broadcast by television companies throughout the world. Videos of 'We Can Work It Out', 'Day Tripper', 'Help!', 'Ticket To Ride' and 'I Feel Fine' were filmed. Less sophisticated than the segments that appeared in the film Help, they nevertheless managed to capture the energy and sense of humour that the Beatles were famous for.

Music videos then took a different direction with Michael Jackson’s short films, in the 80’s.Such as; Thriller, Moonwalker, and Bad.Michael Jackson’s music videos all included a narrative structure that appealed greatly to his target audience and started a convention for music videos to come. Due to these elaborate films the expenses were very high. This was money well spent as the video’s advertised his music to a wide audience.

As time has gone on and technology has developed music videos have become less necessary to bands and artists due to various other mediums such as spotify, last.fm, MP3 players and social networks. For example Radiohead’s album ‘In Rainbows’ had no official videos and left it up to the fans to create animated videos of any track on the album. This shows that normal music videos are not so exciting any more for alternative bands to make it different and challenging for audiences.

Michael Jackson appealed to a wide audience however today with contemporary media issues changing music videos are tending to be targeting niche audiences.For example, sites such as Blogoteque and Guerrilla Videos, are creating music video for unique alternative bands such as fleet foxes and arcade fire, in unconventional locations such as in a lift and in the back of a black cab, for less money and which takes less time to make. This is an original idea and make it new and appealing for the bands particular audiences. Also this give more power to the band and their fans, ie Daft Hands (made by a fan), and less power and control to the record label, who used to organise all music videos for the artists.

Story Boards

Shooting Maps

The shooting maps shows in order of above; the wherry street bridge that is imitating the bands promo pictures. The secound is the establishing shot that connects the band to the girl in which we will hopefully use the brick chimney to act as a fake wall in which we will shoot the band on oneside and the girl on the other. The next is the girl standing at the window of the attic looking passed the camera with the natural light coming from behind producing a profile shot of the girl. The next shot is of the girl at her desk with only a desk light and a light to the side the shot will be quite dark but hopefully highlighting the girl and drawing focus to her. The next shot is of the drummer in which the the camera moves to the right and pivots to keep focus on the drummer. With the lighting from the back left behind and behind right the lighting will draw focus to the drummer and produce a clear shot of the drummer. The next shot is the shot of the band set up in the attic in which we will have lighting from behind to show the band but have no back light so the band are not in profile.

Audience Appeal

• Identification with who you want to be, who you don't want to be and who you are not.



• The girls mise lead identification and aspiration to be like the band creating a weird and interesting character.



• The mise en scene is also aesthictically pleasing. We will hopefully use lights to create dark and light spots in the shot to draw attention to certain aspects of the shot. Also the use of a dark attic will hopefully feel claustraphobic and close in creating dark atmoshphere.



• May also appeal to the audience through the girl's aspiration to be like the band in which the audience may also aspire to be in a successful rock band.



• Escapism as everyone has someone they aspire up to be even though not reflected in the same manner as the girl.



• The use of the 2 other locations other than the attic may also add to the interest of the video.



• 

Treatment

The song we chose was 'Ignorance is Choice' by the Norwich based band 'Kapok' who are a 4 piece rock band who consist of Joe Mazzei, Marcus Gooda, Alex Munford and Olly Kirby all of which will be performing in the video along with the only other character played by Tess Little. We chose the song as it is the song the band hope to release as a single/EP as well as the vibrant change in tempo and structure of the song which will be challenging but hopefully succeesful to edit to choreograph the music with the video. The video like many rock band's videos has an element of performance in it as well as a short narrative that is both linear and parallel with use of the band and narrative as well as being interweaving and circular at the end as both the performance element and narrative congeal and converge as well as referring back to the first shot in the video. We also use flashbacks/dreamsequences in the video in which the band are seen performing at certain locations from which the girl in the video has pictures of the band in those locations.

In the naarative we have a girl who is obsessed with the band and with an unhealthy addiction the girl is reluctant to see how truly close the band are with them being next door to her strange kapok themed office/room. With the band in the know about there number one strange fan the band spy on there stalker whilst the girl gazes at pictures of, writes letters for and cries over the band. Throughout the video we see the girls collection of band memorabilia that we see the girl add to as well as gaze over in which we see pictures of the bands promotional shots in which we then go from still images to moving pictures, sometimes using stopmotion to connote pictures, and seeing the band in these locations. With the end few shots and enigma answering scene in which the girl is gazing at a picture of the band and finally notices Joe ( the lead singer) looking back at her and she drops the photo bringing the video into a full loop as the first shot is of the girl looking at a picture but we do not know who is in the picture but the last shot reveals it is a shot of the band at the wherry bridge in norwich as the picture smashes on the floor.

The connotations of narrative refer back to the title and lyrics of the song as the girl is closer to what she wants than she thinks, thus connoting her ignorance, but always not quite in reach connoting the lyrics;

War, in your mind,
ruthless means to fight,
this knowledge that we hide.

As the girl is in a despondent mind set in which she hides away from the fact that she is so close to what she wants.

The locations we are going to use are my attic, wherry street bridge and the UEA campus. With the performance element in the dark and small attic as well as the girls room in the attic and then the flashbacks/dreamsquences in the UEA and wherry street bridge.

For costumes we are going to use conventional rock band outfits for the band themselves and for Tess we are going to use smudged make up and torn and tatered clothing to show her oddness and despondency. This is also going against conventional and stereotypical representations in music videos and other media texts. The male gaze won't be a representational issue hopefully in the video as we see the girl in tattered clothing as said above going against stereotypical 'slutty' outfits and costumes that women wear in music videos. Also the fact that the girl is the stalker and the band as a whole is being stalked is an odd representation and going against normal representation in which men are the antagonists and a girl is the one being stalked.

Videos that influenced our music video are muse's 'hysteria' and 'dead star', Reverend and the Makers''open your window' and Radiohead's 'There, There'. Muse's 'hysteria' was influential due to it's use of fat cuts and narrative structure. The fast cuts and editing is influential as the 'Hysteria' has the same sort of tempo and quickness that makes the video and song exciting. The narrative structure itself follows a man who follows and stalks a girl and brings her back to his room in which the narrative uses a parallel strucutre to sshow the man wrecking his motel room after watching back the video of him and the girl that he stalks. The narrative and structure influence are own video with its use of a strange antagonist who is stalking a girl. The 'dead star' video by muse influenced us due to it using a dark and claustrophobic area in which the band was performing to the same fast cut and quick edits that we want to use in our video. Radioheads' 'There, there' influenced us with the use of stop motion camera work that we want to use in our flashbacks/dreamsequences to connote pictures being taken at the UEA and the bridge. Reverend and the Makers' 'Open your Window' influenced our narrative as the band and the protagonist actor in the narrative are next door to each other and merge and converge towards the end of the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAiVszTl0vA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7la0SndoCI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BumUKjZFOtw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs1DX32t38c

Initial ideas and developement of ideas

Initially we wanted a chase scene in a post war/apocalyptic mise en scene with a couple trying to seek refuge at the bands' safehouse/gig. But due to this being very hard for us students to create/locate a satisfying and realistic location. So this lead to us wanting to change the location to a forrest, thetford forrest as a location, but however with a weak link in with the narrative to the band and potentially a loss of interest by the audience we wanted to change the narrative but keep the gritty and dark location where the band would b performing. This lead to us wanting to a create a character who was obsessed with the band and followed and stalked them everywhere.

With an unhealthy addiction the girl is reluctant to see how truly close the band are with them being next door to her strange kapok themed office/room. With the band in the know about there number one strange fan the band spy on there stalker whilst the girl gazes at pictures of, writes letters for and cries over the band. With the end few shots and enigma answering scene in which the girl is gazing at a picture of the band and finally notices Joe ( the lead singer) looking back at her and she drops the photo bringing the video into a full loop as the first shot is of the girl looking at a picture but we do not know who is in the picture but the last shot reveals it is a shot of the band at the wherry bridge in norwich as the picture smashes on the floor.

Cast

We will be using Tess little as our protagonist/antagonist and the band members themselves for the music video.

Tess little will play the girl who is in love with the band and stalks the band to an unhealthy and extreme manner. We chose Tess due her quality as an actress as well as her ability to act strange and disturbing as well as her agreeing to dress and look crazy and weird.

Joe Mazzei, Marcus Gooda, Alex Munford, Olly Kirby. We want to use the band members themselves so the band themselves are promoted as well as for practical reasons as they are best at playing their own song.

Tess Little:

As the picture may suggest, Tess can be a little more strange than expected. The picture connoting the perfect actress we need for the video which is a strange and obsessive girl, much like the picture shows, how is caged in to her herself and the band.

Marcus Good: The movement and motion blur in this picture suggests the energy that the band and Marcus express in their music. With the vigourous intensity and movement in there performances, such as above, that will be reflected in the performance element of the video.

Olly Curby: As the picture shows, Olly's style of playing is more confined and self indulgent concentrating on the technicalities which will appeal to many of their target audience who would see this concentration on technicalities as an expression of his talents, although, as the picture also suggests, there is not much energy to Olly's playing.

Alex Munford: With the 'Avenge Sevenfold' T-Shirt suggest Alex could himself be a perfect candidate foe the potential audience for Kapok. As well as the T-Shirt and Alex's fashion preference, the picture shows the movement of Alex's playing.

Joe Mazzei: With Joe's closed eyes in the picture whilst singing, this connotes the expressionism and energy within Joe's performances and the emotions in Joe's lyrics. Joe is a very energetic performer who has become famed for his movement around the stage. This movement and energy we hope to catch in our video.