To start my research and development process I looked into my target audience which will include people of ages 11-24, mainly females and possibly a few males. This is because for the possible music video ideas I have come up with the band/artist is more marketable for that age range and gender. This is because for both my ideas I will have a young good-looking front man and therefore he will greatly appeal to a young female audience and also slightly to a male audience as perhaps some guys may relate to him.
I have also looked at several different music videos and how music videos in general have progressed throughout the years. For example in Kylie’s music video ‘I should be so lucky’ 1988 her music video is very sweet and innocent. She is skipping around her apartment and also singing in a nice elegant black dress. Apart from that there is not a great deal more happening in the video, there is no nudity or violence or anything of that nature as music videos of that time didn’t include these things. If you compare that to Lily Allan’s music video ‘Alfie’ 2007 it includes puppets, violence and the nature of the song in general is a lot ruder. This is due to the fact that music videos these days can get away with a lot more.
Over the summer I came up with three music video ideas which were:
1.Secrets – OneRepublic.
The band itself will all be part of the overall image, however I think that the front man will have more focus on him for marketing purposes. Their image will be very modern with a very edgy style. There seems to be quite a liking for new boy bands currently so I think the band will fit nicely into that open market. The band won’t be a cliché ‘boy band’ with silly dancing, It is a band that concentrates on their image and music. Their U.S.P will be: their good looking members (appealing to females and males) and their current music.
For the music video there will be shots of the band playing but throughout the whole video there will be a running narrative. The narrative is that there is a man cheating on his girlfriend and keeps all his secrets and thoughts in a journal. His girlfriend finds it and confronts him about it.
• Shot of guy writing in journal
• Shot of guy lying awake in bed next to his sleeping girlfriend..
• Shot of guy cheating with other woman
• Shot of girlfriend arguing with guy after find journal, she throws the journal at him (implying she knows all about the affair)
• Shot of guy ripping up journal in front of girlfriend (signifying the affair meant nothing)
• Shot of them standing facing each other with falling pieces of ripped paper everywhere. Do they get back together?
- Throughout the whole music video there will be shots of the band playing and at the end they too will be playing with paper falling all around them to link up with the narrative.
2.Smile – Uncle Kracker
The artist will be a young male with a modern style, therefore giving him a marketable edge. He will appeal greatly to a young female audience and a male audience due to the fact they can relate to him. His image will be quite young and fresh and his main market would be teenage girls as there is always an open market for teen heartthrobs.
For the video the idea was to have the artist sitting singing his song on a stool on the rooftop, perhaps playing his guitar. The main focus of the video is on the relationship between the artist and the girl he likes. So there will be many different shots of them doing different things
together.• Close ups on girls face/smile (soft)
• Close ups on artist face.
• Shot of the couple doing some cliché couple activities (at the amusements, having a picnic etc)
• Shots kept quite soft, perhaps black and white to give a more romantic effect.
3.No Tomorrow – Orson
The band is quite unique and trendy. They have a slightly more aged sound but with a modern image. It is more of an indie/pop style image. There will be four members but they will be marketed as a group.
The idea for the music video was to focus on the music than on a narrative. Therefore the video will focus more on the lighting/ shots of a crowd enjoying the music and many shots of the band.
• Shots of gig/disco
• Shot of silhouette guitar player as he plays his first few notes
• Lights go up on a massive crowd dancing
• Cuts of shots between the band and the crowd
• Female character that the lead singer will interact with in video according to lyrics. “…everybody here is staring at the outfit that you’re wearing love it when they check you out…”
• Many simple shots of band/dancing crowd and female character.
When I pitched these three ideas to my group and to my teacher John I got the response that the first and second idea could possibly work and that I should pitch one of them to Luke. The third idea is very weak and basic and doesn’t have much strength as a music video. After speaking to John he said that for the music videos you always have to make sure you cast the right type of people for your song so that you don’t end up having a really young looking male singing a song that has an older male’s voice to it. I also got the chance to hear my other group members work and see what they had come up with. They had some really interesting ideas and hopefully we will be able to narrow them all down to one solid idea to pitch to Luke, our film teacher and executive producer figure.
