Since last week I had been brainstorming ideas for my music video. I decided to go along with the typical convention of an r'n'b video by using the narrative of a chase between a guy and a girl. I changed my idea because the setting for the music video would have made filming very difficult. I also felt that because the market would be busy the people that were working would be reluctant to take on a small role in my video. I wanted to focus less on the story of Cinderella and put the spot light on this so called 'prince'. After studying Rodger's and Hammerstien's Cinderella 1998 I came up with the story of a boy meeting up with his friends in Mc Donalds. He is very hungry and tries to take one of their chips. His friend quickly grabs his hand and says 'No'. They then spot thyis girl from the restaurant window, his friends then decide to give him a task which is that if he can get the girl they saw from the window then he will buy him a happy meal. This so called prince is a very cocky young and he then agrees to take on this task. By still focusing on the whole fairy tale theme the prince trying to get Cinderella relates to the original story where the prince is on a uest to find his true love. However my video mocks this idea because the prince is not looking for love but he is looking to get this girl because his friends made a bet with him. However this quest that the prince goes on does not go very well because obstacles get in his way which prevents him from getting to this girl that he is trying to meet. I remebered watching Usher's 'U remind me' video and saw how things always went wrong when he tried to get to the girls that he wanted.
That is when I realised that I needed to add more to my story. This is how I came up with the idea of obstacles getting in his way. For example when he leaves Mc Donald's he would bump into a Cancer research worker who will try and get him to sign up.
This week I went to Croydon to Film the beggining part of my music video, I took a Canon GL2 video camera and a Canon Deluxe 200 tripod to film the first scene. I arrived quite late and it started to get dark so I had to shot the first obstacle 1st. I couldn't find any Cancer research or British Heart foundation workers but I did find a man that was working for the NHS who was looking for people to take chlamydia tests. He agreed to do it and I filmed the protagonist walking out of Mc Donald's and the NHS man stops him. I had to shoot this scene multiple times using different shots such as long shots, mid shots and eve point of view shots because I wanted to developed my video by using a range of shots by using the handle of the tripod to move the camera around.
This week was story board week, I was able to create a still image visual of my story for my music video by placing it in a story board. I looked at current story boards and I had looked at how directors had put their stories together. I found this very easy to do seeing as I had already drafted out my story on a scrap piece of paper. My story board shows the comic narrative of the music video in a freeze frame. When doing research i noticed that director created story boards in order to have a written document of what scenes should be filmed first and how the story should be piut together to present to the audience.
My planning and research came from looking at current R'n'B video's on Youtube. I looked at current music videos and music videos from the last five years and compared them. From this I decided that I wanted a modern and youthful video which contrasted an old song from the last five years.
I decided to use the same narrative as 'Bittersweet sympthony' where we see the protagonist getting a reaction from people passing by. I wanted to create a music video which linked to the theme of our exam which is post modern media. In doing this I decided to create this character called Cinderella who started off as this glamourous women walking through Camden Market.
As Cinderella walks through the market, it would be shot by using a 'point of view' shot. This way the reactions to her would be seen through her eyes, whilst she is walking she starts to have a wardrobe malfunction. Her dress rips, heels breaks and by the end of the music video she gets water splashed on her by a car that drives past.
My main aim was to produce a music video that mocked the original cinderella story. I started to research the Cinderella story and I looked at Disney's Rodgers and Hammerstien's Cinderella 1998. This music video is different from the original because the director used a multicultrual cast to promote diversity. It creates a comic theme and that is what I wanted to create in my music video.
My so called Cinderella would not be humble and calm she would be snobby and proud who ends up going from being glamourous to being hideous. I decided to use panning from a low shot to a mid shot to a close up of Cinderella's face instead of using and establishing shot just so that it would add suspense to the music video. I wanted the audience to be eager to find out who this mysterious women was.
I sat down with a class mate and asked her for her opinion and she said that my concept was good but it would be vy difficult to try and film a music video in a busy market becaue there wouldn't be enough space. I took her feed back into account and decided to go to Camden and check it for myself, it was too crowded and so I decided change my idea yet again.
Above is my mood board, in this I collected a series of pictures that I thought linked to the idea of 'sexy' and 'cinderella'. The picture on the top left represents the traditional and original idea and story of cinderella, in this disney production. On the bottom left is a picture of Rodger's and Hammerstein's Cinderella 1998, this version of Cinderella is post modern in the sense that it is comical and the cast is multicultural which is a backlash against the traditional conventions of the original production which had an all white cast. I put in a picture of a clock striking twelve and a picture of a city at night which links to the idea of Cinderella trying to get home before the clock strikes twelve. As the Genre of the music video is R'n'B I placed pictures of half naked men and women in my story board because in most videos today men and women are seen as sexual objects. At the bottom right there is a picture of a man chasing a woman this goes with the idea of the prince chasing Cinderella. I did some research to find out what my target audience would be and what type cd cover and posters they would like so that I could make my main task and two ancillary's appealing to the right crowd. Below is a picture of the questionnaire that I created and the results I came out with and the results.
From these results I learnt that my target audience would be young people male and female between the ages of 18-25. They would be a crowd that prefer R'n'B especially, the would be the crowd that prefers to buy albums rather than down load the music from the internet. They would prefer a music video that consisted of love, comedy and drama instead of a music video that contained violence. My target audience would be a crowd of people who liked buying posters. For an album cover they preferred one that had animated pictures and had a variety of pictures and colours. My target audience usually watched their music videos on tv rather than watching them on the internet. Lastly they preferred posters that showed the artist posing which promotes their album and that is very colourful. These results gave me a good idea on how I would creae my main task which would appeal to them.
Originally, we had the idea of using the element of time because of the title of our song 'Sexy Cinderella'. We looked at the movie 'Groundhog Day'. It is a 1993 American comedy film directed by Harold Ramis, starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. It was written by Ramis and Danny Rubin, based on a story by Rubin. Murray plays Phil Connors, an egocentric PittsburughTV weatherman who, during a hated assignment covering the annual Groundhog day event in Punxsutawney, finds himself repeating the same day over and over again. After indulging in hendonism and numerous suicide attempts, he begins to reexamine his life and priorities.Phil wakes up to find that he is reliving February 2. The day plays out exactly as it did before, with no one else aware of the time loop, and only Phil aware of past events.
We then wanted to see a music video, which had the same lelments and plot as 'Groundhog day'. After doing research we came across Craig David's song '7 days'. In this music video, Craig david wakes up one morning and finds himself meeting a young lady who he is infactuated with. He finds himself making simple yet annoying mistakes everyday until he finally gets it right. We found this very interesting because we realised that we could link it to the key idea of time. We decided that this so called 'Sexy Cinderella' would relive her day again and again until she got it right. However, we realised that this would be too complicated therefore we decided that our music video would be very simple.
My partner and I looked at this video in order to build up our idea on what kind of video we wanted to produce. We used the idea of a protagonist walking in the street and getting the reactions from people on the street. We wanted to link it to the idea of a sexy woman walking in the street and getting the reactions from both men and women, both young and old. We wanted to keept the video very simple because if we complicated things then it would be very difficult to film .
We also looked at Amy Winehouse's song 'Tears dry on their own' this music video had the same elements and use of camera angels as 'Bittersweet symphony' both videos have a range of diffent shots and techniques. The key shot that I noticed when doing my research was that both videos use a 'point of view shot' and both videos are very comical and outrageous.
This is the original video to my chosen song, as you can see this music video is very basic. It goes along with the normal conventions of an r'n'b video which is usually about a man chasing a woman. In this video, Lynden Hall is chasing this mysterious woman aka sexy cinderella. The lighting is very dim and the music video looks very cheap and simple. I decided to choose this song because it is not a well known song that my target audience are in to. The special effects in the music video makes the scenery look very misty and mysterious. Just like the prince in the original story, Hall is chasing this mysterious women and is trying his best to find her as she disappears during the video. Props are not really used to their full potential because the so called 'sexy Cinderella' is not dressed in clothing that makes her stand out. She blends into the scenery making the video look boring and unappealing to a younger crowd.
