Treatment
James Michael Davis
The First Floor
Music Video

- Synopsis

I am aiming to produce a basic Indie music video which will be similar to the more mainstream music videos out there at the moment. I don’t intend of having any sort of narrative in the music video. Rather than doing a complicated video I would rather capture the band recording. At this stage of the career it would be best to just capture them in their practice room which is something that most bands do when they are first starting out which makes it fairly generic

- Detail of target audience

The target audience is 13-17 year olds who are interested in Indie rock. The music video will cater for both males and females as the video will not have a narrative that they could relate to. Basically meaning with the video being the band playing it will be something both males and females can relate to.

- Plot Summary

To start the video there will be an establishing shot of the room followed by the band setting up their instruments. This will be in a fast motion effect as I have mentioned on my blog before. The music will start and I will film the band from different angles for the duration of the song. The end will be the band joking about and then there will be a close up shot of the light switch and one of the band members flicking it off which will close the music video.

· Location – The bands practice room which is located in Sheffield.
· Props – I will need all the bands instruments to make the music video have all the generic elements.
· Characters – All four members of The First Floor will be required. I will not need any other characters to be part of the music video.

The costumes I want the band to wear will just their regular clothes. Since they are a young new band they will have the aspirate clothes which will reflect the scene in the music video and its something the target audience can relate to.

- Style notes

I will need to capture as many camera shots as possible since the video will only be shot in one room. I will use a variety of shots including close up, mid shot, side shot and so on. Basically as many shots capturing the band member’s expressions and them playing their instruments. I will use a tri-pod to make it so the camera stays steady.

The mise en scene in the music video is natural performance with no narrative.

The sounds of this music video will be the bands song playing at the key time after the intro.


- Recce

There wont really be any main health and safety problems for this music video other than wires that the band could trip over but if tape is used it should be fine. No major dangers.

- Storyboard

I will create a detailed storyboard of what’s going to happen in the music video soon on my blog.

Band Bio

The band The First Floor first started out in 2007 and they are an Alt indie/rock band from Rotherham. They have since they started grown a lot with their newer songs they have on their myspace sounding a lot more professional. Click here to go to their myspace.

The reason why I chose to use them as the main band for my music video is because I've known them for years and I am very familiar with their music as well as having been to their gigs quite a lot before in the past. I trust them to not let me down for the recording side when I come to record.

The image at the top is something I developed in Photoshop one weekend and I intend to use this on the front cover of the album work.

Idea for the scenes of the music video

I have been researching what shots and themes I want to include in my music video for the band I have choosen The First Floor. I have decided on this theme and set for the shooting of the music video. The location of this music video is in the bands practice room and will remain in this

Start

I want to include an intro to my video which will basically be an establishing shot of the practice room followed by the band setting up the instruments in the practice room I will have a basic fast motion video effect on this selection of the video to make it look more professional and affective. Here is a perfect example of this type of motion in play.



Band Playing

This part I will have the band actually playing and I will just record them playing one of their songs from different angles and shots. I want to use a variety of shots for this part on key members of the band. Shots I could use are

• Wide shot
• Mid shot
• Medium close up
• Close up
• Side shot

End

For the end I want to have the band walking out of the practice room laughing and joking then I will have a key shot on the light switch in the room with one of the band members flicking it off which I think will give a perfect closure to the video.

Object update on filming

As the band has been busy with University and other things so I'll be doing the recording in about 4 weeks time. Till then I will be looking in to completing other tasks which will be listed below

• Treatment
• Storyboard
• Album cover research
• Draft Album cover
• Band Bio
  

The Ataris Boys of Summer Music Video

The band The Ataris are a Pop Punk band that have become pretty mainstream over the years they have been active. Because of this I am expecting many generic elements in this video because of the popularity of the band aiming to their target audience which is teenagers.

The start of the video has an establishing shot of a field and mountains which is to show the viewer where the video is taking place and gives a sense of the surroundings and feeling. The scene also shows a black woman like figure walking down the field from behind which is to give the viewer and sense of mystery and that they can’t see who the women actually is. This could lead the viewer to see the mysterious figure as something that could be related to the video and is also a generic event in a music video having a women take place in the shadows not actually connecting with the band.

The next scene is the band playing in the dark side of the field. This is optimised by having the guitarist, bassist and drummer wearing dark clothing where as the singer is wearing a bright red shirt which has clearly been done to make the singer stand out. This has been done so the viewers concentrate on the singer of the band. These are generic element as most videos contain band instruments and parts of the band playing usually with a part narrative in the video to separate things between the band playing and the story. Most music videos mostly concentrate on the singer as well because they are made to represent an ideal self to the target audience which they are aimed at which is teenagers and he/she is the one that puts the most emotion in the song.

Theres also a rule of thirds shot in this scene as the singer step ups to the mic to sing. Heres a screenshot of the example.

Simply shows the shot with the singer in the middle. Click here for the shot

The shot keeps changing from frame to frame every second with the max being two seconds. They change to different angles of the singer as he sings in to the microphone. One shot is from the side of the singer as shown below

For my video I need to make sure that the shot doesn't stay on one frame for too long as this video shows how a music video should be executed. For my music video I’m going to take in to consideration of the shots used as I want to pull something similar off with the shots coming in from different angles and using the rule of thirds shot I think is effective in

Update on finding a band

After getting in contact with my friend the other day to see if i could record their band The First Floor they have given me the all clear to record them. With this news I can now come up with a plan on how this can happen. The First Floor are an indie rock type band and they have their own songs so I'm looking to use one of their own. I already have access to some of their songs so I will have to see which one will fit my music video the most.

I don't plan on having the video contain any narrative because I believe that it wouldn't really fit the songs well and wouldn't look as professional as having the video contain both rehearsal footage and gig footage. T

he idea I have come up with is to have footage of the band practicing in the studio and me recording them from different shots etc. Also they are playing a live gig on the 5th of December at the Plug in Sheffield which I will attempt to record footage off.

Email on finding a band

Since I don't know which band I will be using yet I have decided to email round college to see if there is any bands in college that would be interested in helping. I'm going to send the email to one of the staff members to pass round college and i will update this post with the email contents later.

Green Day - Know Your Enemy Example

The video for Green Day Know Your Enemy is a pretty straight forward music video. The video consists of the band playing in a sort of wasteland while the camera moves round them and shoots from different angles.


The first shot below shows an establishing shot of the area giving then viewers a sense of where the music video is going to be taking place. As the viewer can see its shot at night in what can be seen as a field. This is the reason why the shot is located at the start of the video for the user to be able to get a feel of the setting where the band will be preforming.

For my video I'm going to be looking at something simlar before the band starts I'm gonna be shooting starts playing there will be an intro of an establishing shot of the bands practice room with the band members setting the instruments up before the music kicks in.



Dark and moody is what the shot is reflecting on the viewer which is further expanded with the lyrics of the song itself.

The establishing shot changes quickly to different key shots to show where the band are and this is resulted in the band playing in a war themed place.

The first shot of the band is the singer as the camera goes up a piece of piping which later expands to a rule of thirds shot.

This shot is a rule of thirds with the singer in the middle as the camera goes up the pipe to get the first of the singer.

The first actual shot of the singer is a side shot which seems to be a common theme within these style of music videos. I will be looking to having a similar theme for mine when I film it because I don't want the camera to keep focused in one position for too long as this would not impress the target auidence and could become boring.

New Plan

The new plan has started due to my other team member letting me down on the animation side of the project for the first idea. I have decided to go ahead and do the whole project on my own with little time I have left for this. For the new plan to work I will have to phone my friend tonight who is in an indie band to see if I can record his band playing. I will have to make sure I arrange something to be recorded in the next week or so due to the lack of time left for this project.

I will have to also ask for the correct content for this project can be retreved from one of the band members like song lyrics and the song itself to be embedded on my blog. I will phone up my friend later on tonight to see if I can record as soon as possible. Later on tonight I will update my blog.

Contingency plan

A Contingency plan is a plan devised for a specific situation when things could go wrong and due to the hard drive failure that Paul discovered we lost all of the work we did with the animation. This has led to another back up plan to come in to play due to the fact we don't know if any of the animation will be able to be recovered. The hard drive crash lost all of the work we had developed so far in the project and due to the time limit left for the project we have had to come to a plan B.

The alternative idea is to do a music video similar to a video we saw from students last year which will have a band playing which will consist of different camera shots. The music we choose will be put over the band like in most music videos because the band never plays live in a music video due to the fact the band is trying to promote the single to drive more album sales.

The music video idea would be shot in a room and the band would play normally. The camera shots would change to the style of the music to make it more effective. This would catch the expressions on the faces of the band for close up shots.

This overall is a pretty simple idea but its also very effective if pulled off correctly and it also shows that a music video would not need to be narrative to be successful.

Programs that will be used towards the animation

Clicking on the links below will take you to the Wikipedia pages which will have information on how the programs work. These four programs have been crucial in developing the animation. To make the animation work effectively these programs were the best programs we could work with to make the animation work.

Adobe Illustrator

Serif Drawplus 10

Adobe Photoshop

Windows Movie Maker