CW & GCT - Music Video Animatic

CW - Prop and Costume Ideas

Ideas that George and I have been discussing about props and locations can be clearly seen in our pitch, which is accessible on the blog.
Costume Ideas that George and I have had were influenced heavily by our audience research. We found that people really saw that the band should be wearing winter clothing. For this we have decided to use coats and scarves both in our possesion to dress our cast in 'the band'. This conforms to the majority of peoples expectations, and gives a good look when combined with the woddland location.
Other costume ideas were to have the housewife to be dressed with an apron, and tied up hair to give the stereotypical 60's housewife look, which is vewry useful when trying to convey our ideological discourse on conformity.
Lastly, the costume ideas for the boy and man will be a suit, for the above mentioned reason, and to wear an orange jumpsuit, for which we have already attained. This is due to ideology as well, as in our interpretation of the song's meaning we found that the lyrics conveyed the situation of an 'office job' as more prison like. Something that the orange jumpsuit connotes.
Props George and I will be using will be a ball adn chain for the above mentioned reason, a guitar which we have obtained for some performance pieces ( we may include drum sticks, for someone to beat on their legs or on the ground. ) We also are using a computer for the character to type on, which we also have access to. Overall we have planned and obtained the majority of what we need, with other such pieces easily gotten. Any further ideas or changes, or problems will be posted on the blog.

CW - Shot Idea 4

A further idea that George and I had was to involve strange time-lapse sequences within the video to give a strange and uneasy feeling to the viewer and the characters within it. A particular part that we are doing this in is in the London scene. Here many businessmen in suits will be rushing by in fast forward, while the ‘man’ character appears to be in present time. This will signify him as different from the others. After this, we will force him to join the people rushing past to show that he is now like everyone else. This aids in the ideological side of our music video, and will help to inspire meaning within our video. George and I are experienced with this as we experimented with this technique last year, and in Brighton testing our shots. An example of this can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDF_i_Kxil4

CW - Shot Idea 3

Another idea that George and I had was to use a shot in London with a tripod held to the chest of the ‘man’ character so that the camera is always fixed onto the face of the character, making the rest of the world look very erratic while the camera constantly keeps the characters face within the frame. This can be very effective if the character breaks the fourth wall and sings into the camera for use of connecting lyrics with visuals. This will be done in one of the more erratic sequences of the song, and so will connect sound and visuals as well. We plan to do this on an early morning in London, to get a crowd of businessmen walking to work to give the busy, hustle and bustle feeling. An example of this technique can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZt_8-dr_w8

CW - Shot Idea 2

One aspect of finding ideas for the music video difficult was in promoting the band without the aid of the actual band itself. For this we came up with a simplistic and blatant technique that we thought would be quite effective. Our idea was to have the words ‘The Shins’ or the bands name and song’s name on various objects that the characters use. This could be extended and be used as a link between lyrics and visuals, as important lyrics could also be written on places that the character goes to, or on objects he/she uses, e.g. on the ball and chain that George and I are planning to use ‘The Shins’ could be written on it, or ‘Split Needles’ could be written on one character’s name tag if we planned on using one.

CW - Shot Idea 1

George and I have discussed possible shot ideas before, and they have been rather vague. To try to sculpt these ideas into a more defined visual style, we are using the blog to document and discuss ideas. One of our Ideas was to have the characters in the video to be singing the words to the audience. This would provide a strong visual link between lyrics and visuals, as well as sound and visuals, and could be interesting as in providing dialogue in the sequence. Part of this idea was used in a video for The Shins ‘Know Your Onion’ where a man is debatably playing god, speaks to the camera the lyrics of the song. This can be found in the media section here:

http://www.theshins.com/

GCT - Audience Research

Questionnaire results:

1. How does the track make you feel, what mood does it convey?

• “Depressed”
• “I feel calm when the track is playing but also feel that it has strong mood underlying the calmness. I feel like the song goes through a journey.”
• “Pensive, loneliness, unsure of things.”
• “It makes me feel reflective; it conveys a mood that I would feel when thinking seriously about things.”
• “At the beginning during the introduction, the mood is quite lonely and there is a sense of a a great journey yet to be undertaken.
However, throughout the track the mood improves as the journey is undertaken and develops.
The track makes me feel relaxed but at the same time leaves me feeling confused due to the crazy instrumental sections.
The track also makes me feel the colour yellow.”
• “Relaxed, calming, along those lines”

2. What style clothing would you expect the artist to wear?

• “Skinny jeans and a shirt”
• “casual but stylish”
• “Indie clothes, but also imagine clothes like The Enemy wear.”
• “Bright coloured, cold clothing, scarves etc.”
• “Warm, outdoor clothing.”
• “Knitwear and generally slightly raggedy attire, with simple and understated yet trendy styles.”
• “Indie, a kind of normal/indie blend”

3. What type of weather do you think of when listening to the track? (you may select multiple answers)



4. What colour does this track convey ?



5. What do you interpret the song to be about?

• “a rebel in society”
• “frustration about life”
• “A journey that takes place where a young person is developing into an adult but being pushed into a life that although is idyllic, he does not want.”
• “Being pushed into the stereotypical 'American dream'
• I'm unsure.”
• “A long journey, both physical and metaphorical, and not forgetting the colour yellow.”
• “Finding yourself, coming of age, something like that, not really sure hard question, but that's the feeling I got listening to it a few times.”

6. What kind of imagery does the song make you think of?

• intro sounds like traditional japanese/chinese music.
• dreamy, pensive, stuck in dead end job
• Urban settings early in the morning and late at night and the inside of run down buildings with moody lighting and high contrast between the light and dark.
• Bright, and dark contrast.
Church, prison, holes, office, everyone looking the same, masks, old fashioned contrast against modern.
• I'm unsure.
• The song makes me think of imagery of journeying as well as brief sections of confusion and disruption.
• Cloudy, see that picture i sent you

What we’ve learnt from this:

Our audience research reinforced our ideas for our music video and gave us confirmation that we were thinking along the right lines. Cameron and I believed that the track had the feeling of a journey taking place where a young boy grows into a man and makes decisions about his life. Our audience research shows that our target audience also believe that this is what the song is about as well as being calming but serious. We intend to take into account these factors when making our music video. The clothing in our video is going to be alternative and indie styles, these tie in with our audience research where we found out that the clothing that the audience would expect our band to wear is of the same genre. We planed to have dull cloudy weather in our video and when the idyllic life is shown, sunny weather. Obviously we cannot control the weather so this is quite a lot to ask for but our audience research shows that our target audience would also expect this weather. As we are filing during the winter months it is quite likely we can film during dull cloudy weather and therefore this will work out quite well for us. We planned to have a section of the music video which would be slightly de-saturated and yellow, like a sepia filter to give an ‘old fashioned’ and tradition feel. Again our audience said that the track made them think of the colour yellow so even though we weren’t thinking along such basic lines this will tie in quite well. Another decision we have made which was influenced by the audience research was the use of contrast. We were undecided weather to use high contrast during certain section of our music video but following up from our audience research we have decided that this is a good idea. Overall we have found that we are satisfying the target audiences needs through our ideas and therefore can continue creating our music video without altering anything.

GCT - Reccie to Kings Hill

Cameron and I needed a location which would show many similar, uniform houses for our music video. We decided to go on a location ‘reccie’ to find such a place. The reason we needed this sort of a location is because in our video the narrative shows a young boy being brought up and being pushed into a stereotypical set of values and beliefs, therefore to show these ideologies we thought it would work successfully to show lots a similar houses to suggest how everyone eventually gets pushed into the same life. We had heard about a place called ‘Kings Kill’, this housing estate was built by a residential company called ‘ENVIRON’ who designed every building very similarly, this gives the whole area an eerie feel as it almost looks like a toy town. We decided that this would be the perfect place to base our location ‘reccie’. Below are some photographs of the location:



Here I practiced my shot framing to get an idea of what it would look like if we used the location for our music video. You can see that I’ve taken into account the rule of thirds.

Here are some general pictures of the location:










We then discovered that one area of Kings Hill had white picket fences. This was ideal as even in our initial concept of the narrative we had describes white picket fences as having strong connotations of communism and the ‘ideal life’.







Then as if to reinforce our ideas that ‘Kings Hill’ would be perfect to shoot a sequence of our music video in, we found an American mail box. This is an icon image of ‘the American dream’:


Finally we took away a ‘Kings Hill’ brochure for an aerial view of the location:

CW - The Shins - 'Split Needles' Pitch

THE SHINS PITCH

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( CLICK THE BLUE TITLE ABOVE THE EMBEDDED POWERPOINT PRESENTATION TO VIEW IT ON SLIDEBOOM )

Above here is our powerpoint presentation, for pitching our idea for a music video for ‘Split Needles’ for The Shins. First off we showed what our brief for the music video was. This was just to gently introduce the viewers into what we were doing, including our limitations. Next we showed the viewers the track, so that they could get a feel for what the track was like, and to stimulate the class for what kind of imagery and genre can be associated with the track to get some appropriate feedback. We also decided to show a our moodboards of different album covers to show a general format and images associated within this typical genre of music, for our digipak as well as our music video. Next we showed what we had learnt from both our product and technical analysis of the various music videos we had analysed to teach us what kinds of techniques and imagery are used. Most importantly from the technical analysis we spoke of how an asynchronous narrative is common in this genre, and that this adds cryptic messages to the viewer, acting as an intellectual puzzle for the viewer. Most importantly from the product analysis we spoke of how dominant ideologies are mostly challenged, and this is something that we must take very seriously when creating our video, as this is important to the lyrics and the target audience. We also displayed our audience research, and told the class what we had found, which was that the costumes for the band were seen as winter clothing, and that the weather should be cold and dreary. Something that shouldn’t be too much of a problem, and that the song was interpreted to be a refection on life.
Next we pitched our actual idea for our music video. We showed how it was going to be an asynchronous narrative based video, about a boy growing to becoming a man, trying to reject the dominant ideologies you are eventually forced into. This got a good response, and everyone seemed to be onboard with the idea. Then we pitched the locations we had in mind for the video. This turned out to be extremely helpful as one pitched location that we weren’t so sure about, had feedback on a good location that someone knew. We have since visited this location (Kings Hill) and have decided to use it for our production. Pitched costumes were also well received, as we showed the stereotypical housewife costume and the orange jumpsuit, which were taken as good concepts, and in concordance with our ideological discourse on dominant values. Shot ideas were taken well, as we spoke of the strange time lapse sequences and the tripod fixed to the body shot. These were experimented on before and we shown to be aesthetically interesting. After that we spoke of difficulties we might face, this turned out to be mainly concerning the time lapse sequences, as weather may be a key issue when maintaining the impression that one person will be in the present while others are in ‘fast forward’, and that being out for long periods may run out the battery on the shoot. We then displayed the cast, which was no problem, and spoke of how we were going to promote the band. Our idea of putting the name of the band on random objects in the video was very popular. Lastly we talked about our ideas for our digipak design, which turned out to be taken well, with some queries on style of the image. After we said that it would be in a cartoon style, the class was no longer concerned and liked our idea, that being of businessmen and housewives queuing up for the heavenly gates, all looking the same, while one, non suit wearing person is turned away.

Overall our pitch was a success with a lot of very valuable feedback. Everyone was on board with our idea and concept, and found our pitch well laid out. This has given George and I confidence in our ideas, and look forward to filming.

CW - Product Analysis

The Shins – ‘Phantom Limb’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkITsv3Nk6M

GENRE / NARRATIVE

I chose to analyse this track due to its similarities in the genre and style of the track both I and George have chosen for producing a music video. I therefore hope that analysing this video will stimulate new ideas, and enhance ones already present. The band is also the same band George and I are creating the music video for, and should help build a bigger picture into what the band’s image is.

The genre of this track is alternative, and so comes with its own set of forms and conventions. Conventions evident in this video are its asynchronous narrative, which is present in a majority of alternative videos, as it builds a more cryptic feel to the story of the video. Another typical part of an alternative genre video is that pieces of performance are used throughout the video. This advertises the band as genuine as they can apparently perform in reality. This is heightened by the naturalistic depiction of the band, denying the artificial look to create band image. This makes the audience empathise with the band further and makes it easier to form a ‘relationship’ with the band. Alternative videos often contrast between use of bright colour and dark and dull colours. This was shown in the video when the bright red backdrop in the video is used to depict the band, which then cuts to a battle scene at night, contrasting colours heavily to quickly change mood and connotations within the viewer. Another convention typical of alternative bands is style of dress. This can include either bright, colourful and inventive costumes, or dark toned suits, and or smart style of dress. Here the band is shown collectively wearing suits. Therefore the band is conforming to the stereotypical style of clothing associated with alternative bands. This video conforms to typical conventions within this genre. The video reinforces Goodwin's theory that music videos demonstrate genre characteristics. For example, style of dress.

The lyrics are amplified through the visuals in the video. Parts where the video and lyrics match literally are ‘file by one five and one’ as people are marching, and ‘latent power I know they hide’ when an angel pulls out and holds a sword, as a symbol of power. The meaning of the lyrics are very cryptic. My own interpretation of the lyrics are about a girl in High School who is an outsider and wants to be part of the ‘cool’ group. She follows the cool girls to malls and houses, and no matter what the cool girls do or say to her, it feels good to be part of the group no matter the cost. Though the surreal meaninglessness and superficiality of that particular way of life seem wrong to her, but she’s too far along in her ‘crime’. ‘This is that foreign land, With the sprayed on tans, And it all feels fine, Be it silk or slime.’ The lines convey negative connotations about artificiality, and suggests that this is what people now aspire to, and the girl in the narrative of the song is unsure whether to join in or not. The video however doesn’t really convey this meaning. The video is instead about how idealization of innocence, purity and god can lead to inspiration and willpower to further better mankind, but how this ultimately leads to bloodshed through the self-righteous nature of humankind. This is shown by an angel giving a young girl (Joan of Arc) a sword (a symbol of violence) to fight for freedom over the British. She kills everyone on stage, and raises her sword in victory as all her kin are dead on the floor. She is then burned at the stake later on. Due to ‘God’s’ inspiration. Other historical events are then shown throughout the video that convey the same meaning, and further enhance this idea that idealisation just provides reason for people to separate and ultimately die at the hands of it.

There are significant links between the sound and the visuals, in the way of change in pace of rhythm. At the beginning, the song is fairly slow, so the camera tracks in slowly, to convey a calming mood as enhanced by the track at this point. Then the curtain opens and a beat is established, people are shown marching, and march to the beat of the song, which anchors the beat in a visual format into the viewer. Cuts are also made when the beat hits, this establishes a visual beat which further enhances the rhythm. When the song slows down later into an instrumental, the video slows by showing people struggling in slow motion in the snow. This represents the slowing of the beat aesthetically. The cutting pace also speeds up and slows down according to the pace of the song. The band is always depicted within a normal time signature so as the beat can have a direct link with visuals.

This video could mainly be considered as art, while also advertising the band. This is why the music video is postmodern. The video presents challenging ideas, by showcasing idealisation of martyrdom, religion and purity as naive, and generally used as a reason to display separation form others, while being intolerant of others ideals, ending only in killing and prejudice. This is a provocative idea, as the meaning of the video displays what is stereotypically depicted as entirely good, and the ultimate aspiration in a negative and haunting way through truth of historical events that seem identical despite location and time period. The video is however also an advertisement as it contains a performance piece of the band, displaying them as genuine musicians, and so this attribute of the band is commercially shown to the public by the product. The use of meat shots create a band image. The fact that the product can be considered art in itself, can force the video to become advertisement, as the band is now conveyed as deep and thoughtful through the challenging ideas of the music video. Music videos are postmodern as they are visual representations of sound. They combine advertisement with entertainment in order to create band image. This is also true due to lifestyle associated with the band as a product e.g. clothes are advertised through costume.

MEDIA LANGUAGE

Lots of meat shots were used during the band performance pieces, this was to allow the audience to form a closer relationship with the band members. This is in concordance with Dyer’s theory that a band must seem distant, yet close paradoxically at the same time. At the beginning a red curtain is seen opening, connotations associated with this image is of theatre, which establishes the location as a play or stage to the audience. LSs were used to establish ‘location’ or time period on the stage. MLSs were used constantly on stage to display costume in further enhancing establishment of time period and location. Leading lines were commonly used to display opposing sides, e.g. the Indians and crusaders. A telescope mask was used to convey distance. Here the fourth wall was broken by a band member looking into the camera. This creates discomfort in the viewer and spoils the voyeuristic nature of the shot. White fluff was used to connote snow to help show temperature and location of the pilgrims. The performance section is located on a stage presumed to be by the side of the stage by the camera only filming the band location from the left. A red curtain and green bush comprises of the mise-en-scene, as well as the instruments. The green bush, and red curtain glamourises the naturalistic look, a motif of ‘The Shins’. When Joan of Arc receives the sword a bright light is shown behind her head, and a low angled shot is used to convey moral superiority. Slow motion used in editing during fight scenes and struggling in the snow, this is used to show the brutality and simplistic nature of the fighting and suffering and the moral blindness of it. Jump cuts were used throughout the video to give a jarring effect aiding in the visualisation of the beat of the song. Fake fire and snow are used as profilmic special effects. Other effects used are smoke machines and a sword being lowered on a clear string. These effects are all done during filming, and add to the child’s play connotations. Slow motion effects were done during editing. Dark lighting and red lights were used during fight scenes to create negative, evil connotations of fighting. Costumes were used to portray ethnicity e.g. the Indians wore little clothing, and tribal garb, while the crusaders wore armour with the Templar’s cross on it. Dark filters were used during the burning of Joan of Arc and when depicting the angel at later stages to connote negative aspects of the situation, and give a general depressing feeling to the video. This challenged the dominant associations of angels, aided by her facial disposition which is seemingly cold natured.

Little reference to popular culture is mentioned throughout the visual text. Instead reference to historical events are shown throughout the video in the style of a school play. This creates parody of these events, as the crude styles of the play depict what was a serious and terrible event, and shows them as light-hearted entertainment. Which then becomes a play on innocence due to the obvious association with children and purity. Meaning created through this use is that idealisation of religion and senses of moral responsibility lead to hate eventually through lack of unity in lifestyles and opposing theologies.

REPRESENTATION

The band are represented in a stereotypical alternative band style. This is due to the style of dress that conforms to the conventional clothing options of their genre. This agrees with Dyer’s paradox that the band must seem ordinary and extraordinary simultaneously. The band wears suits which are commonly worn by everyday people at work and casually. The performance also keeps to the paradox as the performance piece shows the band as talented musicians, and so makes the artist-audience relationship inaccessible, which then inspires the viewer to try to regain this relationship through continued consumption. This is enhanced by the use of a red curtain positioned behind the band throughout their performance, this brings out the glamourous connotations of their performance, depicting the band as extraordinary, and unattainable, whilst exaggerating their talent. This glamour conforms to the cult of youth and beauty, therefore heightening their status, further distancing themselves from a relationship with the audience. This makes the audience want to buy the product to establish a more personal relationship with the band, to show something about their personality to make themselves seem unique, original and meaningful as the audience might find the song.

Really only one age group is represented in this particular video. However it is the ethnicity that is conveyed differently. The Indian tribe are conveyed as savage people who sacrifice animals to their god in one way, but are also depicted as care free through the boy’s smile when he holds up the sheep’s head. This is a stereotypical view of this ethnicity, and so the crusaders see it this way, they act on this and kill them, reasoning it to be for God. The angel is represented as a negative being, whilst still maintaining most signifiers that connote the angel to be good. This is done by showing the angel (or idealisation) in a cold disposition and being the cause for all the conflict throughout the world, as shown when the angel gives Joan of Arc the sword, only to be burnt at the stake later on. This creates a negative depiction of the angel, and by association, religion. This creates a challenging ideological discourse on the stereotypical view that religion embodies all that is good and purity, and is the one true motivation and aspiration. This instead shows this ideology to be null as it only succeeds in creating destruction and conflict within humankind, due to flaws in the human condition and its intolerance of oppositional values. The band here makes a statement on the naivety of a perfect ideal and self-sacrifice provided by religion throughout our history. This is conveyed more meaningfully as children as they represent pure and innocent forms. These forms are then corrupted by conflict motivated by the angel or religion and its myth of true heroism.

INSTITUTION / AUDIENCE

This text would be consumed at both a focused viewing mode and ambiently. This is due to slower editing, historical historical significance and complexity of the narrative. However, parts may be viewed ambiently, for example the performance sequences would be viewed ambiently as narrative is no longer present and editing is faster paced. Whilst aesthetically pleasing shots are used frequently, without complex signifiers, which can be viewed ambiently without difficulty. Music channels this video would be shown on may be such channels as ‘The Hits’ or ‘MTV’ while staying away from the more R&B channels. This piece is aimed at alternative music stations due to its genre that strays from such genres as rap, due to its oppositional values on wealth and success. The record label would promote the video by advertising the complexity of the messages in the text to create an enigmatic aura attracting consumers that enjoy this genre of entertainment. This video would be promoted as art to bring in the correct demographic, which intentionally, is also a main aspect within the alternative music demographic. This creates an intellectual ‘puzzle’ for audiences to solve, and becomes a talking piece (social currency) due to its cryptic meaning, which further promotes the track.

GCT - Product Analysis

The Shins – Australia

I have chosen to deconstruct the song ‘Australia’ by the band ‘The Shins’ for my product analysis. I have chosen this video because we are creating our own music video for ‘The Shins’ and as this is an existing video for the band by deconstructing it I will have a greater understanding of what the artist is trying to convey in their music videos. This will form part of my research to help and inform me when creating my own music video.

The video is mainly narrative based but is a narrative of a concept, therefore making it have both aspects of narrative and conceptual ideas. Moreover throughout the whole video there is no performance, this says a lot about the band as it shows that they are not all about their image and showing off their star persona and skill with instruments but more about the meaning behind their songs and conveying their songs message. By using Goodwin’s framework for identifying key features in music videos it is apparent that this video follows the stereotypically forms and conventions of the genre. For example, because there is no performance based sections of the video making it entirely narrative and conceptual this complies with the typical conventions of the indie genre where it is very rare to see performance based aspects but more conceptual ideas. Another genre characteristic that this video shows is having narrative fuzz. The video almost seems random in some places but this is just to address the fact that the target audience are focused viewers and need cleaver, innovative new content to stay entertained and create consumer satisfaction, again this reinforces the ideas in Goodwin’s theory. Another key feature which is apparent and complies with Goodwin’s theory is the fact that there are strong relationships between the lyrics and the video. An example of this is when the lyrics “Born to gaze into night skies” are sung; at this point it shows the sky from a low angle. This is a clearly illustrative way in which the video uses the lyrics but also puts the consumer in the video with a POV shot and therefore draws in the consumer forming a stronger relationship with that consumer. Overall the video is predominantly illustrative of the lyrics and helps the consumer gain an understanding of the concept and meaning which the artist is trying to portray. More of Goodwin’s key features of a music video are shown by the many close-up’s used in the video. These close-ups are used to show the cutting of balloons, the artist’s faces and many other things, this is another convention of the indie genre and characteristic of a music video. There is also a frequent and strong reference to the notion of looking with the video. One of the artists who seem to be the leader of the pack uses binoculars during the narrative. Repeated meat shots of these binoculars are shown and this reinforces the notion of looking, again reinforcing Goodwin’s theories. The song does present some challenging ideas and concepts. One of these ideas is inside the lyrics, one line is sung which says "android's conundrum", the meaning of this is to live but never be alive, and this connotes the idea that by living a normal everyday life you are not truly ‘alive’ and therefore creates an ideological discourse. This ideological discourse is conventional of an indie band’s rebellious attitude and therefore lets there consumers and fans relate to them which forms a deeper relationship between the band and consumer, this also forms a para-social relationship as the band does not know much about the consumer, but is divulging information about themselves and their beliefs. The video can be referred to as post-modern, this is due to it blurring the boundaries between music video, advertisement, art (With its unique costume and visual styles of the orange colour theme) and promotion as the band are shown in the video which all adds to their meta-narrative, therefore the video could be considered as post-modern.

Many visual techniques are used in the video to convey certain ideas and shape the consumers view of the band and concepts within the video. One of these techniques used is the type of shot and angle at which the artists are shown. The use of a MLS (medium long shot) of the band members in first person mode of address introduces the artists to the consumer and because of the use of first person mode of address creates a more personal and intimate relationship between the band and consumer which leads to a greater consumer satisfaction. Whilst it does this it also shows the band from a lower angle which connotes to the viewer they have a greater status. This helps the band be present but also absent simultaneously which complies with Dyer’s critical framework on stars. Also the use of a tracking in shot draws the viewer in closer to the scene. There is also the use of editing to connote the passing of time in the video, this visual technique is used a few times throughout the video but one of these examples is when long shot of the truck moving right to left is shown, this long shot is situated between two medium close-ups shots and this difference in shot size commutates the passing of time. Reinforcing Goodwin’s theory, close ups were used repeatedly in the video showing something that was important to the narrative, they were repeated much like a ‘meat shot’ to convey to the viewer importance of aspects of the narrative. Certain camera techniques were used to connote the relationship between the members of the band, this was done by showing a medium close up of one character and then showing a reaction medium close up shot of the other character. The shot would repeat several times to show the reactions and actions of the characters and this also keeps the viewer interested by increasing the cutting rate. The only times low angles are shown is when the band is separated and one member is on his own. He is shown through a low angle which would suggest that the band are only strong when together and that they are a unit, conveying to the consumer there strength and relationship.

The video represents the different social groups and the artist in certain way which the band wants to convey to the consumer. Firstly the band are shown as rebellious though the narrative as they are sneaking into a car lot and stealing balloons. This ties in with the conventions of the indie genre as rebellion is a common convention, and also ties in with the expectations of the consumer, also helping to relate to the consumers who are likely to rebellious themselves. On the other hand the use of the balloons and the fact that the band is dressed in bright orange suits suggests that they are very childlike and young. This connotes innocence and naivety which could be seen as ideological discourse due to ‘ignorance not being innocents’ as in the end of the video they have still ‘stolen’ from another person. The band are represented as youthful so that they can relate to their target audience who are likely to be young themselves and help boost sales. Two social groups that are shown in the video are the artists themselves and the security guards. The security guards are considerably older than the artists and our dressed in darker and considerably more boring clothes. This represents the normal working man as ‘boring’ and ‘old’ which creates ideological discourse by generalising this social group and portraying to the consumer an unfair image of the working man. On the other hand the band are represented as youthful through the very colourful clothing they are wearing and they way they move in an energetic way. This suggests to the consumer that the band are significantly different from the ‘normal man’ and therefore retain youthfulness, making them more attractive to the audience which eventually helps sell their product.

The main consumption of this video would be through the internet and viral marketing, this is because ‘The Shins’ target a very niche audience and the social demographic that are their fans would predominantly use the internet to watch music videos. Music channels would also be used to deliver the video to consumers, channels such as MTV would be used, MTV is a good channel to target the target audience though because the social demographic that watches MTV is the same as ‘The Shins’ fans. The video would target a group of focused viewers and try to keep their attention and not let them switch between channels, the video’s narrative is designed to have narrative fuzz and therefore hold the consumers attention.

GCT - Audience Research Survey

Cameron and I have composed a questionnaire as part of our audience research. We will use the results to find out what consumers want from our music video and to help us when making decisions about the music video.

Here is a link to the survey:
Click Here to take survey