BEAT SHEET

Below is my beat sheet; this states the major points of change in my song:

TREATMENT SHEET

A-level Media Studies:   Advanced Production

TREATMENT:  PROPOSAL FOR MUSIC VIDEO

Proposed Title/Song: To Be Alone by Ben Howard

Synopsis of song lyrics: The Lyrics leave the storyline open to interpretation: the artist talks about being alone and not needing anybody in the darkness. These connote negative elements of relationships, for example, arguments within romantic or family life.

Proposed storyline and characters: The video focusses on the lyrics, but with a twist. The narrative is not typical of the genre’s codes and conventions; it focusses on the singers family and his relationship with them. It tells of a family break-up behind closed doors, as the older brother (also the artist) reflects on when he left the family because of arguments, we now see the younger sister going through exactly the same thing. As the parents realise the sister has left, the first person to blame is the brother (artist) - leading to a reflection of both the artist and the sisters thoughts about their personal circumstances. The video closes with the sister leaving her place of refuge - therefore open to interpretation of where she goes, and a flashback of an old home movie from the artists childhood. 

Setting: (time and place) The video will be set in the modern day, in locations which are local and common for people to be. These will include the woods, the beach and the homes of my characters. We will see the singer and others in the video in each of these places as they reflect on the recent events in their family.

Length: (time and shots) There will be no introductory narrative or any extra at the end of the song, the length of my audio track is about 4 minutes and 15 seconds therefore all of the narrative i need to include will have space.

Format: Digital and edited on Final Cut Pro X and iMovie

Style

Genre, mood, influences, claims to originality: The genre of my video is indie/rock just as Ben Howard’s other videos. I have been influenced by the work of Sophie Muller who directed P!NK’s video for ‘family portrait’, as it also focusses on family disputes rather than romantic ones. Elements of it will be quite dark in that we see what goes on with this family behind closed doors, the actor playing the sister will add to this by looking and being vulnerable. 

Camerawork/type of shots: Long shots of the parents from an onlooker’s perspective shows the young girl’s point of view. Linked with close-up’s of the singer and the sister as they are the main features in the video and their emotion needs to be portrayed clearly.

Length of shots/editing: The video’s tempo and rhythm varies throughout, therefore so will my shot lengths. I will edit the video to match the audio rhythm; enhancing the lyrics and mood of the piece. 

Movement and action: The artist and sister will often be seen walking through the woods or on a beach, sometimes running as the pace increases. 

Visual qualities: The video will be shot in colour, however flashbacks to the artist and sisters early childhood will be in black and white - this will emphasise the happiness with their father. The artist will be seen in modern, fashionable attire which will appeal to the female audience. Props will be used inside the abandoned house and the sister looks through her old belongings.

Handling of narrative: The narrative will be clearly portrayed and montage editing will meant hat the audience need to work out the storyline. This will also give the video a repeatability factor. The audience will be kept on their toes so that they will want to watch until the end. Flashbacks will set the time and make the viewers aware of the characters’ history.

Target audience: The target audience will be those of Ben Howard’s existing fans and those who are alternative music fans who like to decode their own message in the media and like to work out the narrative for themselves. They will be aged between 16 and 30 and are both male and female. 

Technical aspects

Production methods: To act as director, producer and editor, focus on the lighting and props as well as risk assessments and shooting scripts. The shoot will last over a total of 4 days to get the specific shots needed.   

Equipment: Canon EOS 500D for both shooting HD video footage and my photoshoot for ancillary products to the video. Lighting will be used in the interior locations and Final Cut Pro X will be used to edit the footage.

Locations/studio: Exterior locations include the local beach and woods. Interior locations will be the family home, the abandoned home and the artists flat.

Resources

People: Angus Tookey as the artist. Rhiannon Eve as the sister. Glenn Tookey and Elisa Hunt as the parents. 

Time: Rehearsal plus performance time. There will be limited time available to use certain actors.

Budget: Very low budget, petrol money for driving to locations: £50.

Rationale

This video will open up Ben Howard’s fan base to a new side of the artist that is seen to be both protective and vulnerable. This will attract all ranges of audience members, from teenage girls to men in their 20’s who have been through similar situations. The video is unique to all other videos in the industry currently and will therefore stand out as original. 

Permissions

 

Here is a screen shot from my email to Universal Music to gain permisson to use my artists song.

MY ARTIST.

 

Artist Profile

  

Name: Ben Howard

Born: West London

Age: 25 Years Old

Genre: -Folk/Rock

-Singer/Songwriter

Label: Island Records

 Albums: -Every Kingdom

-The Burgh Island EP

My song: To Be Alone

Offical website: http://www.benhowardmusic.co.uk/

 

 

 

ISLAND RECORDS

 

Established: 1959

Founder: Chris Blackwell,

Parent Company: Universal Music Group

Distributors: -The Island Def Jam Music Group (US)

-Island Records Group (UK)

-Universal Music Germany (EU)

-Universal Music Australia

Genre: Various but focus on Rock and Pop

Country of origin: Jamaica

Location: Santa Monica, California USA

Offical website: islandrecords.co.uk

.

 

 

 

 

MY SONG CHOICE.

I don't need nobody, Oh no, i don't need nobody

Oh, i don't need nobody to be alone,

To be alone.

And in the darkness a shallow voice

And it hears all.

I bite my tongue, there is a fever,

I will not let it go.

I don't need nobody, Oh no, I don't need nobody

Oh, i don't need nobody to be alone,

To be alone.

And in the darkness a shallow voice

And it hears all.

I bite my tongue, there is a fever,

I will not let it show.

And in the darkness a shallow voice

And it hears all.

I bite my tongue, there is a fever,

I will not let it show.

I don't need nobody, Oh no, i don't need nobody

Oh i don't need nobody to be alone,

To be alone, to be alone.

A study of YouTube as a platform for promoting musical artists

    ‘ A FEW YEARS AGO NEW MUSICIANS PROMOTED THEMSELVES VIA ‘MYSPACE’ NOW ‘MYSPACE’ IS REDUNDANT.  YOUTUBE IS THE PRIME PLATFORM FOR MUSICAL ARTISTS TO PROMOTE THEMSELVES AND THE SUCCESS OF ‘GANGNAM STYLE’ PROVES THIS’ AGREE OR DISAGREE?
 

Once upon a time, Myspace was the social networking site ideal for up and coming musicians. Just as Twitter is now, Myspace used to be the most popular platform for teenagers to create a webpage to express themselves. It allows you to share videos and mp4 music on your profile, which is why it is ideal for amateur musicians to promote themselves. Many have been noticed through this platform and Colbie Caillat is just one of them.

Colbie Caillat - Bubbly:

The popularity of Myspace has decreased rapidly since 2008, just as YouTube made its debut. Some may even state that Myspace is now redundant, where it once had over 100 million global users, its UK audience has halved to 3.3 million monthly visitors in July 2010 (Telegraph). Compared to competitors, Myspace is failing by 2004 when Facebook was launched. Facebook had 500 million registered users and Twitter (launched 2006) already had over 100 million users, surpassing Myspace in its peak, however these sites were only competing with Myspace as social network sites. YouTube is the platform which directly competes with Myspace as a music platform. These days YouTube is the most effective form of promotion for new artists.

We can measure the difference in value of YouTube and Myspace by the price that each was sold for to a new corporation: Myspace was sold to Rupert Murdoch in 2005 for $580 million whereas YouTube was sold to Google in 2006 for $1.65 billion. This does not necessarily mean that YouTube is the prime platform for musical artists to promote themselves, but it does show how much more it is worth, suggesting that it would be a better platform for the artists.

 

 We can see that YouTube is a more effective platform purely through the success of the recent hit, Gangnam Style:

 

This spoof video went viral almost immediatley after it was released in July 2012. On September 24th the video had 262 million views and made history of the most liked video ever. The power of YouTube publicity is clearly presented here and it increases as the Korean artists went on to be signed by Justin Bieber's management, performed on a number of successful US shows and collaborated with Jill Stuart (fashion designer) to create a Gangnam inspired fashion line. Psy's success is remarkable and this would be nothing if not for YouTube. In comparison, Colbie Caillat is still relatively unknown by a large audience, whereas Psy is a global superstar after only 5 months.

The Guardian released an article about the popular song, saying that "Gangnam Style's lyrics may be in Korean, but its visuals are in clear American. It is a pastiche of pop video cliches so familiar you almost feel you know what Psy is singing." This statement proves true, and may be one of the reasons that Gangnam Style has become as famous as it is. The clear stereotypical American style of the video draws the audience in and the pop video cliche pastiche is what ultimately entertains them. Not many viewers will actually know where or what Gangnam is, yet they still buy into the performance and so passively participate in the world reknown dance that resembles a horse impression. 

 

The video now currently has 666,395,251 views, the democratic community of YouTube also means that thousands, if not billions of fans will have made video responses or parodies of Gangnam Style. This is something that Myspace prohibits, meaning that users will generally migrate towards YouTube rather than Myspace to get a feel of community. This connects to Michael Wesch's 'Anthropoly of YouTube' which talks about cultural inversions. This basically means that users are looking to express their individualism, whist still highly valuing community. Connection without constraint is something that YouTube offers its users, whereas we could argue that Myspace is more like suburbia; everyone is in one place, but noone is really connected to much because Myspace is now disconnected from the major media platforms.

 

This image shows that myspace is the least active platform in terms of video viewing per day.

 

 

I would say that it is definitley accurate to state that Youtube is now the major platform in terms of music artists. Myspace is considered redundant by most web users whereas YouTube has atleast 24 hours of video uploaded and exceeds 2 billion views a day. The viral success of Gangnam style proves this idea undoubtedly, i think it is safe to say that Myspace has seen its peak, leaving YouTube as its succesor in playing a major role in the music industry.




 

Sources:

 http://www.website-monitoring.com/blog/2010/05/17/youtube-facts-and-figures-history-statistics/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/24/gangnam-style-south-korean-pop 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/myspace/8243403/MySpace-by-numbers-how-it-compares-to-its-rivals.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

LINK?

Three websites that will help me with this blog are:

www.nme.com












This will help me with the digipak photoshoot, because there are a lot of posters and advertisments for new bands on the music page.

www.we7.com

www.mtv.com


These websites will help me because i am able to keep up to date with the latest music and music videos, i will therefore be able to keep track of genre codes and conventions and how they are used in modern music videos.