It's dangerous to go alone... take this!

OK so planning has got me a little snowed under lately so I thought I'd give you an idea of what I'm going to be using to film the music video...

My main arsenal is going to include the camcorder and this tripod attached to a dolly. This will enable me to easily accomplish tracking shots and tilts, pans, you name it!

I also want to use this Canon Bridge camera because I'll a) have the option of a manual focus to perform focus pulls and  also it has a nifty "super slow-mo" function which I'd like to try out. I will probably any slow-mo with both cameras, and decide whether post production slow motion or this slow motion works best.

Stay Tuned,

~Jack~

Lyrics analysis... Obtaining the Narrative...

Smaller ideas to include...

Here's just some small ideas of what I would like to include in the music video somewhere...

@ 0.27

Questionnaire Analysis...

Mission Control - #001

So here we have it, beginning the final stages of planning! ^o^
First of all I believe the music video will be largely narrative based to reduce the monotony of seeing people constantly playing instruments. The narrative exactly I have not fully decided however... Roughly I intend to use a non-linear narrative style beginning and ending with the protagonist of the narrative listening to the song himself and day-dreaming the narrative up. After the use of this framing device I intend for the narrative to become more unrealistic like a game or comic strip. For this reason I intend to use Adobe After Effects for special effects like balls of energy and other super-impositions such as comic "sound effects" words like "Thwok" and the like. The main narrative I intend to be pretty straightforward to the lyrics and the title, the idea that The Geek protagonist will inherit all and eventually the Earth. I wanted to focus on the protagonist getting the girl literally of his dreams. I also wanted to merge the narrative with the performance at times such as the protagonist playing games and the band - through use of a green screen - appear to be playing within the game. The ending of the video I wanted to use the protagonist meeting the female protagonist for the first time as a sort of cyclical narrative and to represent hope. I will post a more in-depth plan of the storyboard in time to come.

As for my audience, from my current analysis of my audience - this too will be up on the blog within the week - I have deduced that my target audience are students, generally of the age 16-21 and with socio-economic values of Social Climbers or Explorers and watch music videos for a means of escapism. My secondary audience will likely be older than younger as the music is reminiscent toward those growing up in the 80s and 90s and generally, a younger audience would be unfamiliar with these sounds and so the music video can be aimed at those a little older. Equally, there was a (roughly) equal proportion of heterosexual and LGBT people in my questionnaire so to risk not offending anyone or to narrow my audience any more than is necessary, I decided it is best to go against the conventions of voyeurism, I do not feel it is needed either to represent the genre of music.

Finally, and definitely not least important is where on earth am I going to film the thing?! Well for the performance based areas I am currently searching for a place with a completely flat wall and plenty of space to film with the green screen to doctor in other scenery from video games, etc. I shall keep you all posted on this as it develops while for the other parts, I am in search of a small-ish room which can be lit rather dimly for the camera to pick up the flickering lights from a TV screen for my ideas with the sofa and the fading to show passage of time. I am also considering requesting the help of my old high school as the song mentions high school and I had an idea of the male protagonist being too shy in high school and to appeal to explorers, show the protagonist earn confidence and go through personal growth to gain success like a social climber. As I continue to plan my narrative, I shall immediately update this blog and try to envision a suitable location for it. I have also given which certain "actors" to use. Obviously I need to have reliable characters to enlist the help of. I have already been talking with currently unofficial focus groups about ideas and I shall try to intrigue these people to helping. I shall update when I have thought more clearly on costume and character types.

feel free to comment!!

~ Jack ~

Questionnaire!

These are my finished questionnaires which will help me determine what I should use in my video. Please! Save/print the images and answer the questionnaire for me, then upload the photo to a photo sharing site or something and comment with the link. I'm very interested in your views. 

~ Jack ~ 

Identifying Audiences...

My Audience for my music video is stereotypically going to be aimed at what society class as nerds or geeks. But what exactly does this audience symbolise?

Generally I would say that my audience will be more likely to be male because of the association of sci-fi and game interests although this doesn't rule out of girls being part of the audience. There isn't a direct link with these interests and gender. However I would suggest that age-wise, older people have less knowledge on gadgets and the music is a lot more modern. For this reason the audience would likely be aged 18-25. These people are of the generation that grew up with video games also so it would make sense to aim the video at people no older than 30 at a stretch.
Other factors of audiences:

• Sexuality does not affect interests in my opinion because it is typically a unisex interest... for this reason I may refrain from using the convention of voyeurism. However as my interpretation of lyrics, part of my narrative ideas involve a heterosexual couple, however I do not wish to sexualise them.
• Ethnicity: most likely of the western culture but on a very loose basis. Access to electronic age items and references to these may be recognisable by other countries but I think the music video will be most easily related to American and British cult culture. This includes interests in anime, video games, niche artists, sci-fi/fantasy TV genres. I wish to relate to my audience via allusions and references to these materials through mise-en-scene.
• Education: my video is mostly going to be straightforward but hopefully full of detail so that it is universal and not narrowing my audience down further. It should not be too challenging to make sense of the narrative. Equally I don't think that class should dictate a persons interests, especially as western culture is not generally restricted to certain classes.
• Like sexuality choices, I do not think political ideas and viewpoints are relevant due to the themes within my video revolving around psychosis and perhaps even considered childish escapism while sexuality, politics and ethnicity are serious real ideas, I would like the video to be a little "unhinged".
• Location: again as I've stated, I would like to aim the music video at western culture, particular of a cult subculture. This typically is a broad area and impossible to represent every location of America and Britain.
• Aimed at the "E" social grade mostly. Of the 18-25 band, most of these people will be unemployed or part-time employed students. A secondary audience could also exist within any of the rest of the categories who apply to other audience factors such as interests and the need for escapism. The video could also be used for personal identity as the use of psychosis in the video would help deal with the difficult solutions. I think that personally my video could possibly apply to all of the socio-economic values because people can have a little bit of all of the grouped values. If anything I would suggest that the audience would be Social Climbers or Explorers as stereotypical geeks, the audience may want to climb higher in society - hence why they would be students - and by result would change themselves personally making them Explorers also.

To establish this audiences interests and choices for sure, I am going to conduct a survey or questionnaire to determine what to use in my music video. Feel free to comment if you disagree with any of my ideas.

~ Jack ~

Audience feedback...

After showing the Prezi in the previous post to the class, I have taken in feedback. Mostly the feedback was positive apart from more examples or posters and print adverts on a whole. For this reason I may analyse a poster and digipak each in full.

Well that's Planning and Research done! Now I need to research for my audience...
Typically my audience is going to be followers of cult shows and interests because it is already a niche artist. The primary audience is most likely aimed at young adults like students and newly graduated students under 25, because these are the people who have grown up around technology and video games. I now need to establish my audience's interests... In the extremely near future I shall be releasing a questionnaire for people to fill in to establish a general audience representation. I should also like to establish a focus group as a way to informally reach out to my audience and to take on board feedback and any ideas!

Feel free to comment with any ideas!
~ Jack ~

Prezi of Planning and Research

Planning and Research! on Prezi