When looking at Forerunners website i took screen shots to help show you how they have laid out their website and showing you the information they have put on it.
The front page of Forerunners website has their band name, logo, bio, gig dates, contact info and a link to buy their album. Having the Logo on their website helps the band to be recognised.
There is a link to the 'Band Shop' where you can then buy Forerunners album. It also has an email so you can contact the band.
Putting the dates of their upcoming dates on their website advertises to any of the fans that visit the page.
This is the Bio of the band featured on their main page. It gives an insight to the style/genre of the band.
In the music video we like the idea of a girl falling off a building but then landing on a bed this can show she is feeling upset but God is there too catch her. Or it could also mean that she is in a really dark place but in reality is in her bedroom.
Here is a music video which has the slow motion girl falling onto a bed:
We have both agreed that the clean cut cinematic look would suit the music video. Here is an example of a what a clean cut cinematic video looks like to compare to what we want our video to look like:
Fall Out Boy - Takes Over, Breaks Over
Films
The poker scenes in these two films we need to take into consideration, looking at what angles they have used could give us an idea of what we could do, or do more creatively and fast paced.
Chasing Aces Lyrics VerseYou hold in your hand, the perfect royal flush, (introduces the main narrative girl, she is upset and depressed)but what can it buy, that never fades to dust. All the jokers are out All the jokers are outWhat if your only chasing aces what if your only chasing dice. The end of the game is only losers, then there must be more to life What if your only chance is failing, what if all your luck runs out Who have you got who you can turn to, who can truly bail you out? ChorusIf you could hold a perfect hand would you want it? (Woah woah woah) Band shots of them playing as the music changes If you could see more now than your eyes could ever see (woah woah woah) I tell you of a man who walked this earth, oooo Who offers life The band pointing/looking upwards for hopeWoahh woah woah woah
Verse
You hold in your hand, the perfect royal flush, but what can it buy, that never fades to dust. All the jokers are out
All the jokers are outWhat if your only chasing aces what if your only chasing dice. The end of the game is only losers, then there must be more to life What if your only chance is failing, what if all your luck runs out Who have you got who you can turn to, who can truly bail you out? Girl has realised there could be hope and is happier
Chorus If you could hold a perfect hand would you want it? (Woah woah woah) If you could see more now than your eyes could ever see (woah woah woah) I tell you of a man who walked this earth, oooo Who offers life Woah woah woah woah lead singer throws a playing card (ACE) at the screen and it slows down/sticks and reveals the logo of the band
In order to aim the music video at the right target audience, we have to do some research into what age, gender and style audience Forerunner have.
Here is the research we have.
AGE:
To get the age i went onto the Facebook page of the band and went on the statistics. The statistics showed that the age that most popular age group of fans was between 18-24 years old. This age could be biased however, as the most popular age for Facebook is also around that age group too. So for the age of Forerunners target audience, we are widening the age gap to 16-28 years old.
Gender
We observed that the people who like Forerunner were a mix of both males and females, and therefore they should aim at both genders. Also looking at the style research below, there is a total of 15 people, and out of those 15, 8 are girls and 7 are boys, so there is almost a straight devision of both genders.
Style
To get a feel of the style of their fans, i looked at the people who liked the group on facebook and have made a collage of their profile pictures. This gives a feel of the genre and style of the band too.
From looking at these photos i would put the sub culture labels of indie, rock and skater.
✓(Individual) music video x 3 initial Ideas (music & lyrics to visuals)
✓Lyrics Analysis/Lyrics Timecode *_needs some work
✓Final Idea Brainstorm (notepad interpretation of meaning of song)
✓References and Inspiration; Intertextual references (films, music videos, adverts, cinematic style) *
References and Inspirations; Artist Image/Persona (fashion, style, press shots)
(Individual) Music Video Analysis:
Goodwin, Hyper-reality, Intertextuality, Voyeurism (extend/develop your
analysis building on learning in class - present as Directors
Commentary)
✓E-Mail to copyright holder
(Individual) analysis of Digipack (genre, visual style, image)
✓(Individual) analysis of Website (case study)
✓Target Audience – collage of age, gender, sub-culture
✓Target Audience - Artists Social Networking sites 'Friends & Likes'
Mood
Board for your concept & image (setting, themes, cinematic style,
characters, aspects of hyper reality, visuals to key lyrics/descriptions
of the music)
Both me and Chloe have discussed with each other and have decided that the song Chasing Aces by Forerunner is a great song to put a video to as it has many conventions which we could visualize.
Straight away the first line, throughout the song and also in the song title there is reference to playing cards, perhaps poker, so we would like to incorporate this into the song without being too literal (Cat= picture of cat = NO!).
The song is also guitar and drum driven, so therefore we feel it would be right to have a performance element in the music video.
Below are a few pictures of the mind maps we drew when listening to the Chasing Aces track.
We also got a few classmates to listen to it as well and give us their impressions of what they visualise when listening to the song.
Intertextuality - comic book pictures, perhaps reflecting a comic book for women.
Hyper reality - Talking comics, over exaggerated
Notions of looking/voyeurism- frames around the pictures
In this video instead of playing out the story they used stills which then moved and lip synced the lyrics.
Each chorus is repeated to a new person - on the phone to a friend, to the camera.
To find 2 of the unsigned artists, i searched on the internet for a genre of music i liked in the category for unsigned bands.
For the 3rd unsigned band, i already listened to them and enjoyed their music. I knew they were unsigned because i saw them perform at an unsigned band competition.
http://www.last.fm/music/The+Dig/+tracks - love the style!
I have contacts, and can easily meet up with a band called Forerunner (who i have also seen live a few times) One of my favourite songs, which i feel we could so most with is a song called Chasing Aces
http://soundcloud.com/forerunnermusic/04-chasing-aces
Sexual confident- 'Love Me', being temping, biting lips, licking lips, bikinis, legs
Feminine - lipstick, dancing,
The pitch behind the music video could be to represent fun loving feminine girls working a job but going against the rules and having a fun time being sexy and provocative. There are other scenes of the girls not working, at the beach also having a fun time.
Below is the Prodigy's video of 'Firestarter'. I analyzed the video picking out a shot for each:
-Music linking to video
-Lyrics linking to video
-Genre linking to video
and the close ups linking to the video.
PRODIGY - FIRESTARTER
In the still shot above, he was jumping up and down to the beat which links the music to the video. Throughout the video he is lip syncing to the video. The lighting also links into the beat o the music. Low key lighting
CU of the lead character gives us an image to associate with the band. The lead character has his hair spiked up at the corners. This makes the character look devil like with devil horns.
'Twisted animator' and 'twisted fire starter' are used in the lyrics, and as he says 'twisted', in the shot above, he points to his head to say as if he was twisted in the head/mentally ill.
The 4 shots above were edited to be fast and edgy. This reinforces the genre of punk, and dance. Therefore i would genre this video as dance-punk.
Angry voice, aggressive. Anarchist who breaks the rules/criminal activity.
What can i do to improve my grade and level this year?
- I need to set time targets and dates, and remember them!!
- I have to find motivation, and just get it done.
- More relaxed
Exam Board feedback
- Annotate blog posts / reflective comments 'Why have i done this?'
- continuity of fonts and titles
The msuic video contains childish concepts such as people dresses as animals. Taylor Swift is also dressed in her pyjamas which portrays her in a more childish form compared to if she was dressed formally.
The story has a narrative, you see her and her boyfriend breaking up, having arguments and she is also singing about never getting back together with him (perhaps cause of the scenes in the video) There is also a certain degree of hyper reality as she is singing in most of the scenes and in real life they wouldnt be singing.
The visuals link to the music. She sings 'Im falling from could nine', and at the beginning of the music video she was lying on a pink cloud, and the atmosphere then became dark.
In the video there were some non direct links to fairy tales. Alice in Wonderland and Snow white were two that i picked up on.
Snow white and the apple, the maze to the queen of hearts...
Visual style is expressed through Katy Perrys make up and dress code. We can see this throughout the video. She tends to wear bold and dark lipsticks, and eye make up.
There are hyper real experiences, (ie wall being broken, floor caving in, visual effects)
At the beginning there is voyuerism when the film crew are watching Katy Perry through the filming screen. An over the shoulder shot is used to create this frame.
One of the tasks for our summer project was to re-edit the music video 'Absolute' by The Fray.
This task I found particularly hard as you had to piece it together and it took a long time.
