Music choices

I intend to work towards Set brief 4, the music video and magazine extracts. I will be using the indie genre for my video, with a clear narrative story throughout, taking from Todorov’s narrative theory. I will ensure to include many known indie themes, using golden lighting, a mix of third person and first person perspectives, and a heavy focus on instruments and music in general. My narrative for the video will show my musician through a day to day view of his life. I have based my shot list of the type of angles and scenes seen among the indie genre through other music videos I’ve researched based of bands such as ‘Vampire Weekend’ or the ‘Wallows’. It will follow him through scenes such as driving to and from practice, longer intervals demonstrating him playing drums in a practice room and at home, scenes in an editing room (including the headphones sponsorship in most drumming scenes), and these will be repeated to show that each day has the same structure for my character, and to emphasise the idea that drumming is at the centre of his life. This will then be cut with a series of short, close shots of different aspects of the musician in the car, with the final shot being a notification popping up on his phone and then a cut to black, implying that while driving, he was distracted and gets in a crash. I then plan to show long scenes in between black cuts of each scene shown previously in the video, but without the musician there to show a sense of loss. I then intend to end on a last drum beat, subtly showing the musician once again, but leaving it so it does not explicitly tell whether the crash was fatal. A clear focus on the drum set will be followed throughout, as the target audience would be widely musical.

I wanted to use a clear narrative throughout my video to follow Tztevan Todorov’s Tripartite narrative theory, following his three part structure of Equilibrium, Disruption and Exposition. This will give my video a strong narrative structure, allowing it to be easily followed and understood by the audience, which is a key aspect seen in indie music videos.

I will also be producing three print magazine pages, including a front cover, double page spread and tour poster for my musician catered to a mainstream indie audience. The double page spread will contain an interview used to promote the musicians music video and the production behind it, as well as talking about life on tour to help promote the tour dates. I’ve used style models from a magazine called ‘Indie’ which uses a more minimalist style on the covers, which often highlights accessories so I will use the branded headphones seen advertised in the music video on the cover and internal pages, which follow an assorted and bright layout.

I will be focusing on my NEA 4 production. I will create a music video to promote an artist. I will be filming in at least 2 locations, with one character. My genre of music will be orchestral alternative Hiphop. I have collected my non copyright music from Youtube.

In preparation for my music video, I collected ideas by looking at music videos. the main music videos i have taken inspiration from Harry Styles, BTS, and Christina Perri.

My idea will portray scenes where the protagonist is looking sad and disconsolate. I will have scenes using natural lighting, studio lighting and under water sequences. Furthermore, i will introduce most of my scenes in slo-motion, as i fell it gives a more ambient and dramatic effect.

I will use Lasswells Theory of the Hypodermic model to ensure the music videos message is directly received and accepted the receiver. My audience would be more for young individuals who enjoy alternative hip hop music.

I intend to create a 4 page music magazine of the artist where it will focus on the secrets and struggles of being an artist. For my front cover magazine, I plan to portray style similar to Billboard magazines. I will have one large image covering the whole page, with the title centered at the top and minimal complimentary writing around the photograph. I will be using the theory of preferred reading. I will make a media product (magazine) where i put ideas in the texts which i will expect my audience to understand. Stuart Hall calls this a preferred reading, as this is what the producers of the text wanted them to understand. However, each audience is different, so they might understand the text completely different to what was intended.

I will be using the theory of uses and gratification, that was developed by Katz, Gurevitch and Haas (1973). The audience will watch this as escapism from the real world, and also a way of understanding the world in what we live in. As the artist portrays her feelings through the narrative theory, this allows the audience to understand the way artists really fell behind all the media. This also links with the cultivation theory, as the story behind the music video is all about how the media can change the way people feel, as being a well known artist can be overwhelming and difficult, making their identity fragmented.