Filming in LDN

After many a setback for filming in London we finally got tickets and took a trip to go filming. Our initial plan was to rent two Barclays bikes and stick with the theme of cycling around London. We managed to get several shots of Tilly (the main character) on a bike, aswell as shots of her walking around London and on the tube.
Examples
- Shot of Tilly getting on the tube. We managed to get this shot by setting up the tripod on the tube platform and filmed her getting onto the tube, then another shot of the tube leaving the platform.
(inc photo here)
- Shot of Tilly actually on her bike. We set the camera up on the tripod and put it in the basket of the bike and Tilly cycled around Hyde Park with it. It was a case of editing the footage and picking the best parts to include in our music video, we managed to get quite a few good shots however obviously there were some shots that had their issues and will not be included in the film.
(inc photo here)
- Establishing shots of famous scenery in London, for example shots of Hyde Park and London Eye. This was so the audience could recognise the area and understand that it's a busy place (hense come and go)
(inc photo here)

MALE GAZE

Male Gaze is a media theory that shows how the audience view the characters presented in the music video. For example, in our video it will be how the audience view the relationship between the singer and the girl and also how they view the girl character when travelling around.
The lyrics "You come and go" could be implying different things:
1. The girl is loving and leaving the boy (artist) all the time
2. As she is being filmed cycling everywhere, she is going to different places
The relationship between the two characters is made clear by the order that we put our shots in. For example, "I don't know what I'm doing but I know what I want" is a shot of the artist singing and then the girl is shown laughing on the word "want". This suggests that the artist is singing about a girl that he wants and loves.
In the majority of the shots, the artist is shown in a recording booth singing; which makes it clear that he is the main focus of the video and is singing about how he feels about their relationship. A lot of the time the girl is shown in shots by herself which could suggest she is feeling lost and 'coming and going'.

We have mainly been inspired by Ben Howard's "Only Love" video as it features a montage of the many places he has been to, as well as close ups of him and switches between him and images of him performing on stage. This suggests that he has a strong relationship between him and his fans and has included them in the appropriately named "Only Love".

AUDIENCE RESPONSE VIDEO TO THE SONG

We wrote a list of questions to ask our target audience members and filmed them when receiving their feedback.

1. What genre do you think the song is?
2. What were your first impressions of the song?
3. How do you think the music video should look?
Above is a video including the audiences answers that we received from our audience members and other information about what they thought of the song.

Storyboard

After brainstorming ideas we drew a storyboard to help with the planning of our music video. We made a gif on photoshop to show what we've drawn so far. Most of the images consist of locations in London as that is where we plan on filming most of our music video. We also plan to include the artist of our track singing in a music booth, which is part of the montage of the video.

Basically, the video is a montage of several scenes, mainly consisting of the artist on a bike riding around different areas (mainly London as it is iconic and easily recognised) to link in with the song title 'Come and Go'. The travelling within the video will represent the title of the track quite evidently, as we have taken our audience feedback into consideration and merged our ideas together with theirs. It is important to listen to audience feedback as they are the ones who are going to be watching the video and we, as a group, want them to be interested in the storyline and want them to be able to understand what's going on.

Our main inspiration for the video has been Ben Howard's 'Only Love' as we all really like the montage effect and believe that the audience will enjoy it as there's a lot to offer rather than just one storyline. We've also looked at 'Keep Your Head Up' which is a similar video as it's by the same artist. We've had inspiration in our storyboard from both videos and have come up with the idea of a montage including:
- The artist singing in a recording booth
- Cycling around Bristol/London
- Establishing shots of Bristol/London
- Actor walking around London

VIDEO ANALYSIS 1

Ben Howard - Only Love 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWlKZ6C7cDY

FEATURES TO LOOK FOR	GENERAL EXAMPLES	DETAILED EXAMPLES
Genre characteristics	Based around the main singer cycling River	1:41-1:43 (only 1 example of many) Flashes back to his concert and shots of him backstage.
Relationship between lyrics and visuals?	‘Darling you’re with me, always around me’- implying wherever he is, his ‘only love’ is.	1:18-1:20 ‘Show me love’- shot of ben and band members hugging.
Relationship between music and visuals?	The shot changes to the beat of the music	0:48 - 0:51 To the beat of the drum there is a different shot of the bicycle
Are there close-ups of the artist and star image motifs?	Lots, he is the main focus of the narrative and performance.	1:52-1:55 Ben walking along wood in some water on his own
Reference to the notion of looking?	Sped up footage of filming out of a window	2:00-2:05
Intertextual references?	No intertext. references	---
Is it performance-based/narrative-based/concept-based and how much of each?	Performance and narrative	Throughout the video shows Ben performing to his fans while also tells a story about him travelling through (I think) America.

ALBUM SLEEVES ANALYSIS

 James Morrison

One of C.A's main influences is James Morrison, we interviewed Charlie Green from the duo and asked who he was influenced by most. Morrison's music falls under the genre of indie/alternative which clearly shows the link as to why he is a main influence for C.A.

The album sleeve consists of mainly pale, bland colours rather than bright colours which suggests that the music is more of a chilled out tone rather than a heavy bassline/techno beat song.

Comparing C.A's music to James Morrison's there is a definite similarity between the two artists as they both include guitars in their songs and have an acoustic sound to them.

Bon Iver



 Bon Iver's album sleeve is clearly a picture of green scenery, this matches the genre of their music as they produce a gentle, acoustic sound. By using a portrait of the woods suggests a chilled, relaxing sound that includes soft instruments rather than heavy. The colours on the album sleeve are all similar and none of them are extremely vibrant which supports the fact that they produce gentle music that is calming to listen to. The scenery shown on the album cover is similar to that we are thinking of including on ours - green scenery, somewhere in the countryside/woods as it represents a peaceful sound and the valencia tone effect implies that the music is of the indie/folk genre. When asked what they thought would be typical to have on a folk/indie album cover, a few people said that they associated the genre with woods/countryside as folk music reminded them of the countryside.
The artist doesn't have any text on their album cover which implies that their target audience will know the album belongs to the band just by the image on the front. This suggests that the artist has a niche target audience who keep up to date with the latest band news/read music magazines that advertise the album/have seen the album advertised (most likely in a music shop e.g. Fopp)



Gabrielle Aplin



Again, you can see on the album cover that the artist is in a scene surrounded by trees and woodland. This again supports the idea that most indie/folk artists have their album cover shot with greenery and a peaceful scenery. The font used is a classic style of writing (italics) which could make the album cover seem pretty and suggest that Aplin's music is like the others; acoustic with a soft sound. We've been inspired by this album from the font used to present the artist's name, it looks quite vintag-ey, as if it's been typed (creating a sort of sentimental effect) which looks really good on the front of an album. 

Fleet Foxes

Like the other three album covers, Fleet Foxes have chosen to show a portrait of something outside. This seems to be a recurring thing between albums of the indie/folk genre. It's more similar to Bon Iver's cover than any of the others as both of them are paintings rather than a still image. The main colour seeming to run through all of the album covers is green - which suggests a natural vibe and that the music is all natural and acoustic rather than heavily edited and auto tuned. If you listened to each of these albums you'd find out that they all do sound very similar and include the same instruments in most of their songs.

We've finally decided on using a black and white image of the artist (inspired by James Morrison) and to use the font that Gabrielle Aplin uses to present her name, to present C.A on the album cover. We've also chosen to write down some of the lyrics and stick them in the bottom corner of the album cover so the album looks more handmade. Instead of using all black and white (which could seem quite dull) the colour of the font will be red, making the artist's name jump out to the audience.
However another idea is to have a plain black and white image on the front accompanied by simple TNR text with the artist's name on the front. The back of the album will have the song name on it.

ANALYSIS NOTES

'Indie Folk'/ Alternative genre
Artists:
Laura Marling, Angus Stone, Fleet Foxes, Phosphorescent, Bon Iver, Noah and the Whale

The main instruments that feature in the Indie Folk genre are guitars and drums. These are signature instruments of the genre that give it the alternative feel. For example, if you listened to a song by Ben Howard and a song by Gabrielle Aplin, you would assume that they are from the same genre as their music sounds similar. Where as if you listened to a song by Ben Howard and Lady Gaga, it's clear that their music is not within the same genre as they sound completely different and their image to the public eye is a lot different.

In 'Indie/folk' videos the general costume seems to be jeans, leather jackets and t shirts - this is thought to be the modern take on indie clothing.
Indie videos tend to include special effects to make the video seem to run smoother and give it an old fashioned effect to give it an 'alternative' feel.