Tom Abraham's Evaluation

In what ways does your Media Product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real Media Products?

There were many things that we had to take into account when we were researching and making our music video, such as:
-Band image
-Relationship to lyrics
-Narrative structure
(and the most important)
-Relationship and impact on the target audience

Each of the four members of our band are represented and styled in different ways. The bassist is dressed quite eccentrically. He is wearing a shooting waistcoat, a bright orange t-shirt, ripped jeans and battered trainers. He comes across as quite wild, and represents the more outgoing fans of the Indie genre. The drummer is quite rebellious. In the video he is wearing tracksuit bottoms, a hooded top and a beanie hat. All of which are black other than his trainers. All of the band members fall into the Indie clothing category, but they all express and develop their styles in different ways. Quite often in Indie music, band members would wear smart-casual clothing amd they would try to incorporate skinny jeans, quite tight fitting t-shirts and jackets into it.

The lead singer in our band is wearing clothes like this. As well as the superman t-shirt, he is wearing blue skinny jeans, a green hooded shirt and popular, chunky trainers. Shoes like these will often be found in indie videos. It proves that there are many strands leading away from the indie style, this particular one is linked to the skateboard scene, where big shoes such as those are a necessity as well as a fashion statement.



In the video we do show some performance of the song, but we don't dwell on it. We were intending of having the characters running with their instruments, but even though it would allow new audience members to see what part each character plays in the band, we didn't feel that it was necessary as
1) It wouldn't fit with the narrative
2) (Not linking to the audience) It would have been too dangerous to run and jump around carrying expensive instruments, as if anything bad happened or anything was damaged we wouldn't have been able to afford the repairs.

Very rarely within this genre will musical synesthesia occur. Seeing as the videos themselves are querki and random, the audience wouldn't need the constant extra confusion. Saying this, you will sometimes come across one video where there is a short synesthesic snippet, adding to the comedic value of the video as a whole. We were intending to incorporate an idea like this into our music video (during the words "I've got to keep myself from drinking on these streets" we were going to show one of the characters perched on the floor, drinking juice from a can - we intended it not to be alcoholic as it would yet again, add to the comedic value of the video), but due to timing constraints we didn't have the time. I don't feel that our video has suffered at all even though we are missing it. For us the most noticeable link between the lyrics and the video, is the fact that the song is called "Money" and the characters are chasing for a bag (which we know is full of money). This isn't incredibly noticeable for audience, maybe for the first few times that they watch the video. This isn't a bad thing though as this sense of mystery creates a good enigma, as no-one knows what the band are chasing for. It definitely adds to the repeatability factor of the music video.

Quite often in music videos there are a lot of comedic references and also intertextuality.

We incorporated intextuality into our video through the fact that the singer is wearing a Superman t-shirt. The reference is very subtle as you only see it for a millisecond before he zips his jumper over the top of it. We wanted this form of intertextuality to appear in the video as it does reference the singers personality, his retro tshirt preferences shows that he conforms to the dominant stereotypes within male Indie performers, as you will often find that they wear clothes such as this.

There is definitely some form of narrative in our video, even if it isn't the easiest to grasp the first time around. The whole idea of the video is that the musicians of the band meet up, and race eachother to a bag of money, floating in the middle of a swimming pool. During this time the singer is waking up, and decides to leave the house for a walk. In his travels he comes across the rest of the band, battling it out for the money, and so he gets in on the act. After a comedic take on a vehicle race, they all enter the pool house through in different ways, and just-so-happen to all dive in for the money at the same time. We had always intended the video to end before the characters land in the water, as it leaves the audience wanting more, and we were pleased with the way that the video did end. During our audience feedback many of the viewers couldn't get their heads around the narrative after the first viewing, but after we explained it, it all seemed to make sense to them, which was a relief!

The more immature, comedic bands within the Indie genre would have a small clip before the song starts in their video, it may have talking. More often than not it will be for comedic purposes. We did this in our video, but we also used it to set the scene. If people are watching our music video, they will see a character sleeping on his front, allowing more of an enigma to be created as they don't know who it is. We wanted the audience to know that the video is comedic, so by having conforming to the stereotype that male teenagers are lazy, we showed our lead singer struggling to wake up in the morning. We are very happy with how it came out, and I personally thought that having the singer's alarm sound as a snippet of the song to come was a nice touch. Only the more intuitive viewers may notice this first time around, but hopefully the audience will wonder whether the alarm is actually the song more and more, adding to the repeatabilty factor of the music video.

To do this, we used the sound from the actual clip that we recorded on location. What the audience don't see is Charlie from our group holding a laptop behind the camera, playing the song through it's speakers. The fact that the song sounds so compressed from being played out of a laptop and then out of video camera speakers worked well for us, as due to the sound being tinny, it makes it totally believable that the sound could be coming from a mobile phone.

One of the main similarities between the characters in the video and the target audience is age. All of the personas featured within the video are between 17 and 19. This is the younger section of our target audience (those between 16 and 40). The way our characters are dressed reflects the way that the youth of today are usually dressed. Obviously this changes from person to person, and quite often it reflects what music they listen to. You will very rarely come across someone wearing all black, with big leather boots, long black hair, a pale face and black make-up, dusted off with studded belts and piercings, listening to the latest 50 Cent album. We wanted the fans of our band to appreciate our video, and we felt that the best way to do this was to give them a comedic video that was enjoyable to watch more than once. We made sure that the jokes didn't seem to desperate and also that there were small details referencing other ancillary texts that some may notice after watching the videos a few times. We attempted to make a video that would be a memorable experience to watch, not just one of 'those' videos that nobody can remember two days after they watched it.

We have made the CD cover very simple. We didn't want to over-complicate it with too many bright colours and too much text. We have simply used one photograph that we took on location. As the most noticeable part of our album cover is the long road, we wanted the text to be within it, and look as if it as was actually on the road. We did this on Adobe Photoshop by inserting the text layer, then going into the editor, changing the angle to make it sit more suitably on the road, and then we added a filter and changed the colour scheme to make it seem a lot more granulated, as if it had been pasted onto the road.

A lot of bands within the Indie genre choose to have a very simple album cover, take for instance Favourite Worst Nightmare by the Arctic Monkeys. They have a very plain photograph of a block of terraced houses. The atmosphere is very bleak, the sky is dark and grey, and all in all it looks very boring, and lonley. To spruce it up they add an awkward Arctic Monkeys logo with the name of the album directly underneath, both are placed at a strange angle (this is exactly what we've done) and then coming from some of the windowns in one of the houses there are some very bright neon lights and funky shapes. The text on the album volour is yellow, and the fact that it is coming from the sky could represent a lightening bolt, adding some excitement to the photograph. They would have done this to make the logo actually look like it is part of the scene, which is the look that we have gone for in our CD cover. The only difference between this piece of artwork and the one that Animal House produced is that the Animal House one shows the members of the band.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

There were many purposes for our music video, to show off our personalities and to promote the song, to show viewers that the band matches the criteria of the genre and also to show that each member had their individual style. Saying this, the main purpose of most music videos is to entertain the audience. I think that we managed to accomplish all of these very well. After hearing our audience feedback we learnt that all our characters came across as very believeable people. Within the video we conform to the notions of Steve Archer's theory, as we have a mixture of performance and narrative within the video. We develop this idea by incorpora

ting the performance into the narrative, i.e. when the singer is cleaning his teeth before he leaves the house, he is singing into the mirror at the same time.

Because we follow the guidelines of Steve Archer's theory, it comes across that the band has a real and positive connection to the music, with is pleasing for the audience to watch. We also follow his theory to more of an extent with our digipack. There is a definite relationship between the narrative of the video and the photos we used in our digipack. For instance, the television, used in both the front and back cover. During the video, when the band are running out the barn, the guitarist is on a bike, the bassist is holding a table and the drummer runs out holding an old television.

This on its own adds to the querkiness of the video, but then when shown in the CD covers, you notice a definite link. If the audience were to spot this then they could feel that they had inside knowledge to others who may not pay particular attention. This is similar to the Uses and Gratifications model where the audience are taking something from the media, as they themselves are noticing the link.

The text on the back cover is the same font as the text used throughout the rest of the CD spreads, but instead of lining them up square, we angled them so the line was purposely un-even. We did this to prove that we are not always conforming to the rules made by the media, and that we are not a straight-down-the-line Indie band, we are our own people. The jauntiness of the words could be seen to represent our rebellious streak.

When it came to our digipack, we wanted to prove to the audience that we are an artistically literate band with substantial intellect. Our simple but artistic photos and inlays show the audience that we run our own image and that we're not being controlled by the media.

We didn't want to over complicate the CD inlays. We decided to have three different inlays, all with a similar sort of structure. The background of the photos are subtle colours that are pleasing to the eye, with just "Animal House", written in black underneath the photo, to the right hand side of the spread. The photos are humorous and are not to be taken majorly seriously. The whole purpose of them was the entertain the audience who look in the booklet inside the CD case. We have made the photos fun and enjoyable to look at as it makes the group seem more believable and the individual characters within the band seem much more 'real' and not just manufactured. We wanted the photos to actually look like we'd taken them ourselves without a whole crew setting up a photo shoot. If audience members were to notice this then it would incline them to think that we wrote all our music ourselves, and that we are a totally self-made band.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We had a screening for our video and digipack one lunchtime where we showed students and teachers (around the age of our target audience) and anyone else who wanted to view the video. To say the least they enjoyed it very much so, which pleased us as a group! After they watched the video we asked them a series of questions about their opinions. Before we asked them questions we made them agree to answer truthfully and not to just say that they thought it was good as it was our coursework, which they were all happy to do.

They were all very certain that the video matched those within the Indie genre. One of our younger teachers pointed out that

"... the video was very quirky..."

and that it appealed to them very much. When planning the project we had decided that the video was to come across as quirky, so in that sense, we were over the moon. Bands such as the Arctic Monkeys actually aim their music at students and those in their mid 20's, so to here an opinion like that from someone within that age category filled us with joy.

There were a few things that the audience weren't clear on, for instance, the narrative. They weren't 100% sure why the band members were running, and quite a lot of them didn't actually notice the bag in the middle of the swimming pool for the last scene.

We did actually try very hard to make the bag noticeable, but there was an obvious flaw that we didn't show it enough in the video.

After we asked them all of these questions and listened to their opinions, we then explained everything to them and showed the video again. After the second viewing the narrative was clear to everyone and they seemed to enjoy it a lot more.

One of the questions we asked them was whether they would want to view the video again, and investigate further into the band. They gave us a positive response and agreed that because we had successfully created a good sense of enigma, they would definitely want to see the video again, for two reasons...

1) Because it is enjoyable to watch

2) They wanted to understand the video more and more.

When we showed the audience our digipack, they were very positive as well. They particularly liked the front cover for the CD as they thought it made the band seem very believable, and not just like four A Level students taking a photo for their coursework. Within the CD cover they thought that the angled, slightly granulated font worked well as it was subtle, yet very clear and artistic. They also agreed with us that the filter worked well, and that it wasn't too over the top.

The audience that we showed the video to also noticed the comedic aspects of our video. This was a big relief for me as when we were filming the music video we

were trying to make the acting amusing without looking like we were trying too hard. Take for instance the nearer the end of the video when the singer is running into the pool house, he bursts through the door labelled "Ladies and Children changing rooms". We didn't intend for this sign to be there when we arrived at the location, but fate must have been on our side as when we saw the sign we thought it would suit the content of the video well.

Overall, we felt that it was safe to say that the audience were suitably impressed with our project, and as a group, we couldn't have been happier with their feedback.

How did you use Media Technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

When brainstorming earlier in the project, we were adament on the fact that we wanted to film the video using a HD video camera. We felt that it would be beneficial in the long run as it would enhance the viewing quality of our film. Admittedly, we didn't export our video into the biggest/widest aspect possible, but we are still very happy with the quality, even when blown up onto a big screen/projector. One of the most challenging shots to get was the swimming pool scene at the end of the video. We wanted to make sure that most of the pool was in the shot, but still allow the characters who were jumping into it seem big, allowing them to be the most noticeable objects on screen.

We then edited our video using Final Cut Express. As we have all been doing Media Studies for a year already, we are as good as fluent on the editing software. As we all were proficient when using final cut express, maticulous editing was vital, and one of the most important things was timing. As you can see in the next clip, the important happenings of the scene are emphasised by being placed on the hits of the drum fill.

When creating the CD cover we used Adobe Photoshop to piece all of the layers together. We worked hard on choosing mature fonts and simple colours, whilst effectively making an aesthetically pleasing CD cover. We used a high quality camera to take the photos and we took everything from apperture settings to simply the flash into account to make sure we got the best possible picture. We made the poster in a similar fashion. We added a filter to the photograph to give it a more hand-drawn effect. We did this to catch the eye of a passer by, and to make it stand out when in a magazine or on a shop window. I am glad we managed to create this effect without being too extreme. The subtlety of it allows us to look professional and not just like "another boy band".

Normally the research for a project is completed and handed in on paper. For our media research (as you can see) we kept it all together on a group blog. As well as making everything much more organised, it allowed our teachers to track and comment on our work, meaning that we could improve. Having easy and quick access to the internet meant that contacting bands about whether we could use their song was very simple. It also allowed audience feedback to be simple as we could simply post it onto Youtube. Youtube proved very useful for researching other band's music videos, and we also managed to view previous A, B and C grade worthy A2 Media Studies group's coursework, to see what sort of level we need to be aiming at, or trying to exceed.

One of the most important things within our project is self evaluation and audience feedback. We created a Facebook group meaning that the members of it could view our video and tell us their response. We even posted a small questionnaire in the discussion column. We worded some of the questions very simply and others in a more complex fashion, so that everyone could understand and answer.

Click here to see the Facebook questionnaire

Overall, we all felt that we used Media Technologies to a good extent and at a good quality, and we are sure that our project would have suffered without.

Audience Feedback Preparation

Yesterday I helped Charlie create a Facebook group named "Animal House A2 Media". Soon Emiel is going to upload the video onto Youtube and then we can post that as a link on the group. We are doing this to make our audience feedback and our video easily accessible. We can make discussions and questionnaires and get the members of the group (of whom mostly are within our target audience age range) to fill in for us to see what they feel about the video.

The Current Situation

At the moment we are just steadily working through our evaluations. Before we put each individual evaluation up we are uploading some sections, bit-by-bit. 

Whilst we are doing this, we are rendering and exporting the video to put onto a DVD. We are having some trouble as the final versions seem to be quite blurry, so we are just troubleshooting at the moment.

Video Feedback

Recently we completed the music video, and we are extremely happy with it. We have shown it to a couple of groups of people, and they were all very positive towards it. One of our Media Studies teachers showed our video to a group of Media specialists. They gave some mixed feedback, but all in all they were surprised with the quality of the camerawork.

One thing they did mention was that the video was slightly unclear. For us in the group we know what is going on in the video as we came up with the idea, but for other viewers, it could be slightly random. Also, in the scene where Richard is running to the car we had to do a slight cut to speed up the shot, and unfortunately there is a slight glitch in the trees. When we showed the video to younger audiences they didn't notice it, but apparently the Media group noticed it during the 3rd or 4th playing. They mentioned that it isn't as bad as we think and it isn't too noticeable. The only reason that some of them noticed it was because that their jobs are to find and rectify slight glitches in videos and video games, so they are very professional.

We have also completed the Digipack, we've burnt a video into Quicktime which is almost like a slideshow, showing the front cover, the back cover, 3 CD inlays and the promotional poster. We are having some troubles with the quality of the video after we exported it, so we are trying out all the different possibilities. One of the main troubles that we had on the dvd was that when we went to play the video, it came up the size of a stamp on the screen, and even though we filmed it on a HD camera, it came up very blurry. We are currently sorting these problems out and we should be finished quite soon.

Once we've completed this, we can show it to different sections of our target audience. We also feel that it would be a good idea to show it to the original band "Yellow Garage" to get their feedback, as in a sense, the video is for them.

The Bag

Unfortunately due to none of us actually owning a briefcase that we wanted to put in a swimming pool, we had to use a different, and less smart, recyclable holdel bag.

Even though we had to make this change, the new bag does actually add to the comedic aspects of the film as the audience may be expecting a smart briefcase full of money, when actually it's a 'Tesco Bag for Life".

Obviously nobody knows what is actually in the bag, and we intend for nobody to find out.

Filming

On Sunday we filmed the final pool scene, overall it went 'swimmingly'. I acquired a contact from one of my friends who cleans a small-time swimschool for children's pool and I managed to get in contact with him. He left a message on my answerphone giving us permission to use his pool for 2 hours, free of charge. We also received written permission from him of which a copy of will be uploaded soon.

Last Thursday we also filmed some more 'running' shots of Charlie and Emiel as in comparison to the amount of shots Richard is in, there are a lot less. Unfortunately there was a tiny part missing on the tripod meaning that we had to film all of the shots handheld. Even though handheld shots can be quite effective when used to impression pace and adrenaline, we are hoping that it won't look tacky as there is too much 'wobble'. Unfortunately, due to timing constraints we were unable to come back to school, get a new tripod and then go and re-film. This has helped me realise that even when in a rush, it's always best to thoroughly check all of the equipment before going on-set, even such small details like where the tripod connects to the camera.

Today is Monday and we now have until Thursday to complete the editing. This seems very do-able, but as a group we must make sure that we don't rush it, we need to take our time and look at every single detail with such scrutiny to maintain professionalism and quality within our music video.

Editing

Today I managed to upload all of the clips that we filmed onto Final Cut Express. We had some difficulties doing this at first as we had filmed onto a HD camera and we hadn't had any experience doing so and then uploading before.

We still have one more shot to film, which we can do during the coming week. Luckily the shot we still need to film is the final shot, so it doesn't affect the editing of the rest of the video, which we can start as soon as possible.

So far I am extremely happy with the progress that we've made as a team, as I feel that we have been very pro-active and extremely organised. What we need to make sure we do is film the last shot perfectly so it brings a dramatic, yet fun ending to our video. Once we have done all of this we mustn't let our progress slip away, so we need to use all of the time we can get when it comes to the final editing stages and evaluation.

Filming

As mentioned by Charlie, due to medical issues we couldn't use the swimming pool that we were planning on shooting the final scene in. Other than that all the filming is done therefore we can film the final shot at a later date and edit what we have got so far.

What we must remember to do is wear exactly the same clothes when we go to film the swimming pool shot, as it won't seem very continual when we suddenly change outfits within seconds.

Storyboarding

Today, Richard and I started the storyboarding for the chase scene, we planned the first shot and discussed ideas for the rest of the video. Soon we will be filming the shots of the singer singing the words, only two members need to be there to film. Once that is finished we can move straight on towards filming the chase scene, and once that's completed, the filming's finished.

What we need to do before filming

All we need to do before we can go ahead with filming, is complete the final draft of the storyboard and decide on costumes.

We have a vague idea of what we want for both of these issues, so it is now just a case of finalizing everything so we are 100% sure and know exactly what we are doing when it comes to filming.

Final Plot

3 characters meet in location (to be decided) all receive texts . As they all take their separate routes. There are cuts back and forth from the singer, who, differently to the other members of the band, is waking up, and taking it slow. This is what happens until the guitar solo, when the singer then sees the briefcase in the swimming pool in his back garden and starts to become more suspicious. He goes outside to see it, and turns around, then to see the other 3 members hurtling down the road towards his house. The cuts between the 3 members and the singer will become more and more frequent the nearer they all get to each other. Eventually, the singer breaks away from his "chilled" exterior and gets in on the action by turning round and storming towards to swimming pool. All 4 members of the band then throw themselves, mid-air into the pool, and the video just cuts out before they all hit the water.

We feel that the contrast between the fast paced action from the instrumentalists and the slow, step-by-step morning routine from the singer will be effective and also not to difficult to capture. When it comes to editing, we can really bring the pace to a halt when it cuts to the singer through quick transitions and different lighting techniques in the filming.

Simplifying

In class today, Charlie, Richard and I discussed possible happenings in the video. We decided that we didn't want it to have such a step-by-step feel to it, for instance, if a man was to take something out of a bag and then hide the empty bag, we wouldn't want it to come across as:

1) Man sees bag

2) Man opens bag

3) Man takes what's in the bag

4) Man closes bag

5) Man hides bag

We felt that if we were to use intriguing camera angles and technical editing, we could simplify the whole process whilst allowing more to happen, and even though we'd be using less shots, it may actually make it more interesting for the audience. Take this example for instance, we would much rather it be:

1) Man sees bag

2) (shot from behind the bag) Man looks surprised when bag is open

3) (shot from behind the man) Man walks away carrying something

4) In another shot of another character, audience notice bag in the background.

In our opinions this would be much more effective, also it would show that we are being intelligent with our filming, and that a lot of planning did happen before filming.

The lyrics

Money, I got it, I got it

Money, I got, I got and it's in my head

I've got to keep myself from drinking on the streets

I'll never find myself again in ways I can't believe

Money, I got it, I got it

Money, I got, I got and it's in my head

I've got to keep myself from drinking on the streets

I'll never find myself again in ways I can't believe

You better watch yourself when I meet your boyfriend

Don't get in my way cos I'll beat you down

It's alright baby cos I'll find my ways

to catch you up in the night, yeah

Money, I got it, I got it

Money, I got, I got and it's in my head

My mind is somewhere else away from what it seems

Get down on the floor bitch, bow and pray for peace now

Money, I got it, I got it

Money, I got, I got and it's in my head

I've got my head but not my heart set on the BLAH

The rest you said BLAH BLAH BLAH

You better watch yourself when I meet your boyfriend

Don't get in my way cos I'll beat you down

It's okay baby cos I'll find my ways

to catch you up in the night, yeah

Linking the song to the video

At the beginning of the song, there is an eight bar intro. Seeing as there will be four main characters within the video, the introduction of each character can last for 2 bars. It was an idea within the group that one or two of the characters were to wear suits in the video, so it would be almost comedic in a sense if two characters turned up casually dressed and were acting quite relaxed, and the other two turned up, power dressed, to the maximum. In the 8th bar, there are hits on an open hi-hat and then a syncopated snare hit on the 3.5th beat of the bar. I think it would seem quite effective and technical if the 3.5 beats in the song were all snap shots of one of the characters, rather than a moving image. It would be most pleasing if the character we use for this is one wearing a suit.

The verse first consists of two musical phrases, with two lines to each phrase. I think it would be more simple and effective when it comes to editing if each character was to be shown for technically an equal amount of time, meaning that here they would take a line each. The first phrase is one vocal line repeated, but when it is repeated, it is harmonised. One of the ideas that we had in the group was the we could attempt a split-screen, and have an extra character appear on each harmony. If this becomes to complicated to do on Final Cut Express, another method we could use is having one character running down a road, and then when each harmony comes in, another character appears and starts running along beside them.

When the chorus comes in, the music is a lot more energetic, there is loud thrashing drums and backing vocals. Since the beginning of the song, the first chorus would be considered as the most important section therefore I think it would be good if here, all the four characters (each taking their own individual courses within the chase) were all to 'collide' in a small area and all be momentarily confused. After the chorus there is a quiet bridge passage before the next verse comes in. It would be quite good if here, one of the characters were to show their fatigue, and then once the verse comes back in, the chase is back on!

After the verse, chorus and bridge the second time round, there is a chilled guitar solo. I think here it would be quite interesting, if another character emerges into the video, and stumbles upon the object that the initial four were racing for. This character would just come across as a random teenage, complete with headphones, skateboard and backpack. I feel that if this character was to then open the briefcase, take what's inside it (the name of the song gives you a clue what this could be) and put it in his bag. He could then go and dispose of the empty briefcase (which could be where we had previously discussed... In a swimming pool). Once he turns back around, the characters could rush past him, one of them actually then borrowing his skateboard, and they could all jump into the pool, where the camera just freezes on them in mid-air, which is where the video ends.

The song ends on a long, harmonised note. The long note will be suit the freeze frame perfectly, and the fact that it's harmonised could also represent the fact that all of the characters are present when jumping into the pool.

Initial copy of the song

I received an email from Chris Keeling, drummer of Yellow Garage (he takes care of all the recordings of the songs) with added permission saying we could use the song and that the rest of the musicians were happy that Greg had already said yes.

In the email he provided me with an MP3 copy of the track "Money". For the time being we can use this copy to listen and analyse the lyrics, timing and rhythm, and then when it comes to editing on Final Cut Express, Chris said that he will email me the song in WAV format, which is a lot bigger file size and much better quality.

Now we have our own copy of the song we can listen to it whenever we want from any computer with or without internet, allowing us full analysing potential. As previously mentioned in earlier blog posts we as a group literally need to dissect the song, write down the structure and the lyrics (post them on the blog) as well as make final decisions on which parts of the storyboard (coming to the blog soon) will link with which moments in the song.

Learning the song

Today the three of listened carefully to the song that we are going to use (Money by Yellow Garage). We took notice of key lyrics, timing within the rhythm and also the use of instrumentation. There are some sections where the drum beat is off-beat and unexpected, these would be great times for quick cuts and modern transitions to maintain the variety and franticness within the video.

We were also thinking of maybe incorporating split screens and tone editing such as having some of the shots in black and white. 

What we need to do as soon as possible is post a copy of the lyrics onto the blog and then also a detailed analysis of where we could change shots and how we would. We also need to finally decide the routes being taken by each member of the band to get to the destination that they are racing for.

The song

Yesterday, I represented the band as a whole and spoke to the lead singer of Yellow Garage (the band of the song that we're using). I asked him whether we could use the song and remembered to keep it formal, clear and concise. Thankfully, he replied very enthusiastically and proved quite keen to see the end result. All we need to do now is get a member of the band to send us a copy of the song in an MP3/MP4 format meaning that it is compatible to use in Final Cut Express.

Indie Music: The genre

The genre we are going to work with will be Indie. We have already researched into the various songs we could use for the final piece and have found a suitable track, from an unsigned band called 'Yellow Garage.' The track is called 'Money', the reason we picked this song was because we think it will work best with the video we had in mind as the tempo is reasonably fast. The song also includes a clever riff which will go well with the whole 'pursuit' idea.

I think we have made the right choice choosing an indie song to make a video for, as it will include lyrics therefore adding an extra dimension to the video. Also, with the video having four people all chasing an object, and the lyrics being about money, this gives us an idea of what they could all be chasing.

Audience Research

Within the next week to two weeks, the band are going to start undertaking their audience research (the questionnaires, etc...) as as soon as this is done, we will have a great idea on what the audience want and expect in our music video, meaning that we can storyboard, and then get filming!!

I think it would be most rewarding if we were all to do our research separately, then we can come together and compare our results, looking at the most popular/average answers making it easier to decide on a whole what the audience really want.

Developing our own stars

Our stars will be male icons for the indie/rock music of the early millennium. They will conform to the dress sense linking to that genre at this time, yet will slowly start to make it their own. At the moment when performing, indie performers normally wear casual clothes, as it is more about the quality of the music, rather than the performance given from the band. Here's what indie/rock musicians would normally state as their attire:

- Smart shoes or pointy boots, normally black or brown leather.

- Smart, yet tight fitting trousers. Usually black but white is appearing more and more.

- Often a small, slightly worn-out t-shirt, with a loose long sleeved shirt on top, almost always with the sleeves rolled up. The shirt has a sort of 'dusty' look to it.

- Miscellaneously, they would wear sunglasses, rings, they would have badges pinned to their shirts or their guitar straps, loose belts, rags hanging out their pockets. Recently, there has been a surge in the number of Trilby hats being worn.