Health and Safety Training

Before we were able to use the studio, we had to be shown how to operate the various systems, and how to carry the shoots out in a way that would not put anyone at risk.

Taken from our call sheets, the terms below highlight how we decided to operate in a professional style to prevent any issues regarding health and safety, however, if they did occur, we were well prepared:

Website Plans

When researching websites as influence for our own artists, we were drawn to 2 in [articular: SBTRKT and FKA Twigs- under the same record label as one another, the sites carry a similar minimalistic house style,  revealing only the artist name and album cover- with a single colour scheme- to match the album covers. \we used this as inspiration for our layout, lhowever, decided we wanted  more visually appealing background.

Before creating a website for the Band, we decided that it was first essential to create a logo for them to be identified by, to be placed on the site, album cover and on promo shots. Since our artist name is pronounced nettles, we thought it only necessary to base the logo on a leaf, here are some of our initial sketches:

After deciding on a basic logo, we moved on to the main visual image of the site: the homepage- creating a variety of sketches from our influences- with the similar visual of the artists in a forest just as on the album cover, here are the sketches:

An idea for the backdrop image of the site

A basic sketch of the idea of layering to hide/reveal the artists when clicked

After this, we set to work on the actual design of site, using the website production application wix (www.wix.com)- here we were able to use the visual ideas we had created in our sketches and on photoshop to develop a basic template for our site as shown below:

As seen, this includes The logo in the top left, a visually appealing background- the same as the album cover therefore related directly as a signifier of the artist, as well as a picture of the actual artist and details of the name and release date of the album (TBC).

Production Meeting - 29/09/2014

Development

-After a meeting with our teachers, we were advised to find a more up-tempo and suitable track, and as a result, we scrapped all of our original song ideas and settled with The XX - 'Heart Skipped a Beat' taken from the Alterntive Artist's self titled debut album (2009).

- We realised that this track was more suitable to the task in many ways;

             - It has no official video
             - It enables us to include the new video ideas we have been developing
             - Although it is over 3 minutes, its repetitive beat will make it easy to crop


W made no major developments in deciding our Record Label or Artist, but decided on the record label name Red Pigeon Records-  based in London and a subsidiary of XL, they are specialised around alternative and electronic British artists.

We also managed to refine and develop  primary secondary and tertiary audiences.

Primary : Electronic/Alternative music fans aged 14+

Secondary:  Late teens/early twenties

Tertiary: Late 30s / Early 40s

Production meeting 1- 22/09/2014

Within our first group meeting, we came together to firstly introduce our ideas to one another, as well as deciding on the four key concepts: a shortlist of tracks for the video, a record label, an audience, and an artist.

Firstly, we listed our preferences for the song, settling upon the following 3:

1) Ghostpoet - 'Cash and Carry Me Home' (2010 Brownswood recordings)

2) Glass Animals- Holiest

3) Spooky Black - Without You

However, after review we decided that 'Holiest' Lacked vocals to work with, and 'Without You' was too slow to produce an effective, entertaining video with- we settled with 'Cash and carry me home', awaiting confirmation from our teachers.

Possible video ideas for 'Cash and carry me home':

- Narrative of many people of different races lipsynching on their night out

- Using a Go-pro to create a strange first-person style

-Breaking the fourth wall to engage the audience ( similar to videos eg. White lies- Bigger than us)

 Record Label

-We all agreed that the artist should be British  and signed to a british indie label such as young Turks 

-We also felt tat this label could be an off-stem of the multinational XL recordings, particularly based in London

Audience

- Our primary audience is those in their late teens/ early twenties

- The audience would most likely be british, with a large proportion from London and surronding areasable to connect with the urban artist.


 We then decided that we should set u a pinterest ( online image board) to host pictures of our target audience and what we aim for our artist to represent.

Artist

- As our chosen song is by a solo male artist, we will most probably use Seb as the artist as he best matches the voice, with others as the extra lip syncers.

We plan to research our artist identity and bring ideas to the next meeting after our teachers have made a decision on the track.

Production meeting 2: 24/09/2014

Taking the advice of our teachers, we decided that using 'Cash and carry me home' would be impractical due to the fact that the vocals are rather distinct- a deep black male voice- therefore rather than trying t fond someone to fit the role, we should choose a song which we can utilise the abilities of our group with.

We made a new initial shortlist of 2 tracks:

1)Glass Animals - Holiest

2) FKA Twigs - Video Girl





FKA TWIGS- Video Girl

-No official video
-We thought up some really creative studio based concepts for this song
-However, slow tempo and lack of change makes it harder to make an engaging video

After disregarding both of these, due to their slow tempos, we created a second shortlist of more upbeat, narrative songs:

1) Basement Jaxx – Good Luck 
2)The xx – Heart Skipped A Beat

3) Little Dragon – Klapp Klapp

4) Bad Idea – AlunaGeorge

5) DJ Fresh – Gold Dust

-

In the end we opted for number 2- The XX- Heart skipped a beat, due to a few distinguishing factors:

- Simple narrative lyrics, not too slow or fast
-Possibility of male female duet
-Obvious storyline
- NO official video

Our initial structure:

- Based on studio shot footage of white male black female duet artists singing to one another in studio- (lip-sync) reflecting the somber mood of the song and introducing the alternative debut artists.

- Also use of archive footage to present a second narrative of a couple's relationship- following from early stages through to a possible eventful break-up.

-Possible use of lyrics such as "sometimes i still need you" reflected through both narratives- as we see one couple fall apart we see the artists come closer together again.

-However, the song has an excessively long opening which we must cut down if using it in rder to stay within the three minute cut-off point.

Next meeting we will focus on both adjusting the target audience to for the new artist, decide on their name, and create a suitable record label to sign them to.

Animatic

After revcieving consultation from our teachers and audence feedback regarding our stealomatic, we were able to use real stills of our cast and artists in order to create a shot by shot animatic of our updated video sequence.

Here is what we produced:



However, after recieveing further feedback on our animatic frim our teachers, we made further changes, before compiling the new sequence into a new updated animatic, as shown below:

Production meeting - 13.10/2014

In this meeting, we focused on the storyboard, animatic, publicity shots and flat plans.

Animatic

- As our storyboard was now complete, we used its structure to begin to compile an animatic- a timeline of images over our cut down 2:57 track
- We used this as a template to then contrast the archive (VHS) footage we had already shot with the music, and after adjusting minor issues such as the placement of the climax in time with the musical climax, our narrative was finalised.
- The scenarios are listed below:

1)Party  -Laughing/Dancing/Drinking/ First Kiss

 2)Happy Relationship  -At the park/ At home messing around/ On the street walking together/ Brithday celebrations smiling and laughing/ Days out in iconic London Locations/ Shopping

3)Relationship Breakdown  -Same locations as before, just not quite the same feeling of happiness -Louis uninterested, pushes Gina away -Small aruments and Louis goes off with his friends

4)Breakup  - Louis Dumps Gina- she is crying, shouting and leaves the room - She begins to throw stuff at him (his belongings) _ Louis slams the front door as he leaves - Closing shot of Gina crying on her bed

Animatic

- As our storyboard was now complete, we used its structure to begin to compile an animatic- a timeline of images over our cut down 2:57 track
- We used this as a template to then contrast the archive (VHS) footage we had already shot with the music, and after adjusting minor issues such as the placement of the climax in time with the musical climax, our narrative was finalised.

Progress

- We now have a first draft for or stdio shootboard, although we are aware that this will most likely change after the group animatic review with our teacher

- Also, now that we know which location/ archive shots we need, we must work out when and where we shall shoot them- meaning that recces should be done soon

- Promo shots planned and some sketches/ mockups created, but should be developed before the shoot days.

- Started Album Cover flat plans- set up wix.com page and have started designing, as well as creating graphics on photoshop

- Screenshots need to be taken to record progress in designing the site and for later reference

- Designs shortlist cut down to 2 final ideas- same shot and location but minor costume/ stylistic variations. However, we are still contemplating other ideas, so shall create more detailed mockups on photoshop and take a second look

Album cover Ideas

Kit List

As part of our planning ahead of our studio shoot, we constructed a kit list in order to ensure that wehad everythingwe needed available to us, and also so that we could use it on the day of the shoot as a check list to avoid forgetting to bring any kit to the studio.

Steal-o-Matic

After deciding on the four key areas for our video- the artist, audience, record label and track, we came together in order to create a list of visual references and influences for our video. In order to easily compile all of our ideas, we created a playlist on our group youtube account called 'Group 5 reference videos'.

After deciding which videos we wanted to use as an influence/ mock up of our own video, we used Adobe Premiere Pro to organise parts of each video into a format which we could use alongside the actual song to create the finished 'Steal-o-matic'. After playing back the finished product we were able to distinguish which types of shot and editing worked well with the song.

Below is the finished steal-o-matic:

Artist

- The first decision we made regarding the artist was the genre of their music- we selected the alternative-indie genre, and after doing so, we were able to view other artist of the genre and draw on similarities between them.

- We then decided that our artist should be a group of 2 members, and from this we were able to refine our research to group artists such as alunageorge (male and female) and Nico & Vinz ( 2 males). Our artist shall be a male and female duo, which is why we selected the song by the XX as they are a group with both a male and female lead.

- We then made the decision of show we should represent our artist, and decided that there is a lack of mixed ethnicity artists in the charts, and even fewer are male/female duos, this encouraged us to create a group with a black female lead and white male.

-We decided that in order to represent the two vocalists, we should use members of our group to represent our audience, as we are similarly aged to our artist- we decided that Vivian should represent the Black female lead, and Josh, her white male partner.

- Keeping our audience in mind, we decided that the duo should be styled to look current, sharp and respectable yet also bearing the urban, quirky tone reflective of their London background- similar to artists such as FKA twigs, King Krule, Sam Smith etc.

- We realised that many artists dress very differently to how they are styled in their music videos, in order to make them more visually appealing, therefore we decided that our artists should be seen as stylish, however, within the video, they will be presented as having a high-fashion style- the lead male in a styled suit with fashionable shoes , and the female in a current smart outfit such as a dress with face makeup and art to give the pair an artistic look.

- We also felt that as the video is a winter release, that the shots in the studio should present the artists in black and white to reflect their dark personas and also as black and plain design are currently fashionable within the secondary audience, allowing them to identify themselves within the artist.

- We decided to name our artist NTLS (pronounced Nettles) to present them as modern and quite timid, however, the use of abbreviation can be seen as a common trait of the alternative/ electronic genre, allowing the audience to pick up on this and draw them to listen to their music.

Track

In response to the brief of a 3 minute music video, we selected a track which we felt would both successfully attract our target audience of fans of the electronic-alternative genre. Our chosen track is The XX - 'Heart Skipped A Beat' (2012) released under the Young Turks Recordings, a British subsidiary of XL recordings.



After initially considering a more electronic song, we realised that we needed a more lyric-based song in order to effectively create and present a narrative and engaging video. We then looked into the more indie route, creating a shortlist of tracks- Vivian's idea being the one we selected. We felt that this song is more appropriate as it has a developing tempo and narrative alongside it, with a clear sense of youth associated themes of love and heartbreak within the lyrics.

The vocals of the song are a soft duet performed by male and female singers, however, the dark tone of the track means that the pauses between each singer's verse reflects a disconnected tone which we felt would suit our desired narrative of the life experiences of young adults.

We also felt that the idea of a duet could also be an advantage when reaching our target audience, as there are currently a lack of male/ female duet artists in the charts, and even more so in the electronic/ alternative sub-genre.

Another distinguishing feature of the track is that it has moments where there are no vocals, we felt that this would give us the opportunity to divert from the study based performance shots to more narrative based sections, where we could employ our initial idea of using footage who on a VHS camera.

In preparation for using the track I sent an email to Young Turks, the recording company of the track, asking for their permission for us to use the track in our video, and am currently awaking a response, here is a screenshot of the email:

In terms of length,the track is 4 minutes and 2 seconds long, meaning that when we use the track within our video a re-edited version will be necessary in order to fit the 3 minute limit.

Record Label

Dedicating a group meeting to our record label, we made a number of decisions which enabled us to create a structure, style, and location for our record label:

- Firstly we believe that the record label should be a specialist in the genre of the artist- Alternative- electronic, and that our artist is their latest signing.

- In terms of the structure and funding of our label, it is of an indie style, however it is also reliant on funding from its parent company Sony Music Entertainment (SME) and s a small off branch aimed at targeting smaller audiences.


- We decided that the label should be British- specifically aimed at managing British artists and projecting their content to British audiences.

-Similarly, the Label will be based in a London location, meaning that they fit in with the current London scene, also connecting to the artists heritage and our secondary target audience due to the location.


- After deciding on this we came up with the name for the label which I suggested: Red Pigeon Records.

Audience

The first decision which we made as a group was deciding on an audience to target with our music video- we combined all of our research and ideas to come up with the following audiences:

- We decided that our primary audience should be those who's are fans of the Electronic/ alternative genre, mainly due to the fact that this genre is currently quite quiet within the charts, therefore is arguably a gap in the market in terms of maximisation of reach. Although quite niche, it is particularly popular within the UK and specifically London so we feel that we can still gain a lot of popularity within the community.

Primary audience

- As a secondary audience, we picked out people aged fro  their late- teens to mid twenties, as this is generally the predominant age group for listeners of both the electronic and indie genres, therefore we should use them as a model age group in order to guarantee audience consumption.

Secondary audience

- Our Tertiary Audience are of a slightly older age group- ageing from mid 30's to early 40's, hoping to appeal to a more niche audience, however, as a group we feel that the song choice is not too overwhelming for the older listener, and they could relate to the images of youth portrayed in the video in a sense of nostalgia.

Tertiary Audience

Production Meeting 01/10/14

Production Meeting :

Wed 01/10/14 345-530


Table meeting in mm5- no computers but ipads used for brief research purposes

Our group came together with 3 main areas of focus:


- Cutting the list of artist names down to one appropriate name
- Discussing the overall image of the artists in relation to the style of the debut video
- Establishing how our decided record label ( RedPigeon Recordings) is funded


As a result we decided that:

-  Stuck between the 2 names Hex and Nettles we went with nettles, agreeing that it could be shortened to NTLS

-We realised from research that artist image often differs dramatically to how they are styled in videos- therefore we want to present our artist as quirky to show their youthful careless  attitudes

- We decided that our record label should be an offbranch of the SME (Sony) record label, focused on british electronic indie artists and based in London.

Artist:

- We decided our artists will be a black female and white male duo- linking races and making the urban modern artists more relatable

-They shall not be accompanied by a band, as they are electronic artists

- They are also rather independent- producing their own tracks

We chose for the focus of our next meeting to be on developing the timeline for our music video and deciding on how to cut ou track down as it is currently over the 3 minute limit. Once decided, we will be able to storyboard the key shots in preparation for our animatic.