Final Costumes and Props

Narrative Theories

There are many theories about how narrative can be used in any media, and in this post I will analyse some of these theories that relate to our music video.

The first theorist is Levi Strauss, he believes that in media there are 'binary oppositions' these include:

• Good & Bad
• Rich & Poor
• Eastern & Western World
• Love & Hate

Two of these opposites have a role in our music video. Rich and poor are featured throughout, for example the clown has little money and has to perform to earn, whereas the rich man is very sophisticated and smooth, and steals the girl away from the clown, instantly making the audience side with the clown. the fact that the audience know who to feel sorry for also backs up Strauss' theory. As a result of having rich and poor featuring in our video, the opposites of good and bad subsequently take part. The audience get to know who is the 'good guy' and who is the 'bad guy'.

Another theorist that links in with our music video is Barthes. He believes that there are 5 conventions of how media gets the audiences attention. 7

These are:

• The enigma code-audience is intrigued to solve the problem
• The action code-audience is excited to solve the problem
• The semantic code-audience is directed towards an additional meaning
• The symbolic code-audience assumes characteristics based on costumes
• The cultural code-audience finds a meaning in the words/text/lyrics

Our music video has three of these codes included in it. The first code is the enigma code, when watching our music video the audience will want to know what the ending will be, whether the girl tells the clown the truth, and they would be excited to see what happens if and when she does, this also includes the action code. The last code that fits our music video is the sumbolic code, the costumes will play a big part in the video, as the clown will be portrayed as poor just from what he is wearing and the props that he has, the rich man will be dressed in a black suit showing that he is the 'bad guy', and the audience will see this and expect them to act in a certain role.

Focus Group

To get more feedback about our concept we held a focus group with people we think represent our target audience. Our target audience are all digital natives and so the easiest way to communicate with them and organise an event is by using social media. To organise our group we created an event on Facebook and invited people we thought were suitable, this included a time and place to meet us.

Overall the feedback we got was very positive, the group thought we had a very creative and original idea. They agreed that it was something they would watch and wanted to see our video when we created it. They think the video will suit the style and genre of the song and although they did comment about the female singer and whether this matched the male lead actor. The song does also have a male singer, though we will have to make sure that is it clear the male character is the focus in the video. Again there were concerns about how authentic the video would look, in particular the setting, though they thought the Assembly Rooms were a perfect set.

Time Management Update

Today we held our focus group in the library at the college. We invited members of our target audience and asked them questions related to the concept and visual presentation of our music video. We also filmed this to be edited and posted on the blog soon.  We have arranged the actors for the video and are now trying to organise when the best time to film will be. 


We have updated our Outlook calendar to show when and who we will be filming with. The calendar also helps us to plan our time well. The next step for our group will be to finish our posts on Monday and start our filming on Thursday afternoon.

Focus Group

We decided to host a focus group with our target audience, this allows us to gain feedback from the group we hope to aim our video at. The overall outcome was positive, they all liked our concept and agreed that it would be something they would enjoy watching. They did offer some suggestions and positive criticisms that we will take into account when making our music video.

Filming Notes for Thursday 2nd of February

Actors needed: Rosie and Luke
Props/Costumes needed: 

• Rosie and Luke's costumes, 
• props for the clown and facepaint

Shots of Luke and Rosie (clown and girlfriend):

• Backstage shot of talking and hugging
• Putting on the makeup in the mirror 
• Point of view shot from the clown and from the audience
• Action shots of clown (Spinning plates, diablo, bunting)
• Clown dropping everything
• Scrabbling around to pick everything up
• Sad audience with some people leaving
• Happy face when the clown throws the bunting up
• As bunting comes down the clowns face is sad
• Crying shots gradually getting worse
• Backstage shot of the mirror and ring shot
• Separate shot of Rosie and Luke walking by the river

Story board as a Video

In our groups we had been talking about ideas that we had, and they were all getting very jumbled and we were finding it hard to remember them. In order to stop all of the confusion and get organised we have created a storyboard that allows us to have an order to our many ideas, it will also help us to be more efficient when we come to shooting, and will stop as wasting our time and ideas we wont be using. 

Facebook Page

After talking about our initial ideas and ways that we can split tasks up, we decided that it would be a good idea to create a Facebook group so that we can use this to communicate with each other quickly and easily outside of college. The group will be useful when it comes to planning and organising the filming aspects of our project and to keep up to date with how we are all getting on with our assigned tasks. As members we will be able to upload photographs, comment on ideas and share what we have found. When the casting has been finalised, this will also be another platform in which to communicate with our actors. The group will also be useful at times when we are not all able to meet up, meaning that we can communicate with the other members of our group when they are at home. This will mean that we can really make use of the time we have for planning and make sure that we all understand what each member of the group is doing.

Actors and Casting

 This week we have been talking to and organising the actors for the main roles in our music video. As a group we discussed who we would like to fulfill each role, who we desired to play it and who was realistic to cast. 

After the discussion we asked our chosen actors if they would like to be part of our project, luckily they agreed. We then began to make a 'Time Plan' for each actor showing the times in the week that they would be available to film. We also made a list with confirmation of each persons role and contact details for each cast member.

It has been confirmed that Luke Evans will be playing the role of 'Clown'. Luke is pictured on either side wearing a bright green T-shirt and cardigan. We think that Luke is right for this part as he is a drama student with experience playing main roles in both college productions. We chose Luke as a desired actor because he will be able to fully appreciate what we are looking for with our music video.

 We have also received confirmation that Joe Lacey will be playing the part of 'Rich Man'. Joe is pictured to the right photographed in black & white. We think that Joe is suitable for this role as he has had acting experience at high school and has been involved in the college production both with acting and dancing roles. He is also available to take part with the filming on the days that we desire.


It has also been confirmed that Rosie Turner will be playing the woman's role. We think that she would be suitable for this part as she is available to take part in the filming during our media lessons and will be able to fully understand what is needed whilst filming.






The table to the left shows a 'Time Plan' for each actor. the lesson periods marked in red are the times that the person is unavailable and the ones marked in green are when they are available.We have created this chart so that we can easily refer back to it when we are planning to film. 

We are also aware that we will need to cast some extras to act as audience members for a very small part of the filming. This is something we plan to do closer to the filming date as organisation of groups of people can be difficult and often unreliable. Extras will be asked to appear in our music video prior to the week before filming.

As well as a time plan we have also created a grid to show casting information. We have taken down telephone numbers and contact details for each of our actors so that we can call them in event of them not showing up to filming. 

Mood Board

This is a mood board of all of our ideas for the music video, we have gotten these ideas from group discussions and by starting to storyboard our video.

Audience feedback

Audience feedback

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After presenting our pitch we asked the other groups to answer a few questions that we had, and these questions are what the slideshow above explains

Costume/Props/Makeup Organisation

Costume/Props	Source	Potential cost	Person in charge
Suit (patch work)	Charity shops/dads
Wig	Rachel	Free	Rachel
Rings	Rosie-diamond Plastic ring?	Free Free	Rosie Emma?
Props-spinning plates/Diablo	Rachel	Free	Rachel
Bowler hat with flower	Rachel	Free	Rachel
Tight skirt	Rosie	Free	Rosie
Blouse with buttons	Rosie/Rachel	Free	Rosie/Rachel
Posh suit	Joe?	Free	Joe?
Clown Makeup	Emma	Max: £3	Emma

This is a table that shows how the costumes will be sorted out. It shows all of the costumes/props/makeup that we will need and who will be in charge of it and how much it will cost. 

Time Management

In our group was have assigned tasks to different people, to make the process of planning easier and smoother. There are a number of different things that need to be completed and these are as follows:

Time Management - Ongoing blog posts by all of the group, these will be used to check that we have completed all of the tasks and that everything is going to plan

Research Into Target Audience - This will be in the form of a focus group, organised by Emma. The focus group will be held at 12 'o' clock on Thursday 26th January, this will be filmed and posted on the blog

Performers And Casting - This will include photographs of the actors and a grid to show who is playing which role, This is something that Rosie will be in charge of

Organisation Of Locations/Permission - This will include a risk assessment, photographs of the risks involved, Photographs of the location and a formal letter to ask for permission from the Ludlow Assembly Rooms. Jack will be in charge of this section

Costumes And Props - This will include sourcing of costumes and props, photographs of costumes, photographs of props and the person in charge of each costume. I will be in charge of tis section

Audience Profile Analysis

In our pitch we included an audience profile, this slideshow is a more detailed version of the target audience, people that we think will listen to the genre of music we have chosen and that our music video will appeal too.

Audience profile pres

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The Pitch

Pitch on Prezi

Research and Planning: Inspiration

After changing our song from "party all summer" to "who's laughing now" we have come up with some ideas that have been influenced by existing music videos. We decided to change our song as we will be filming in january and it would be hard to make a realistic summer environment. 




The first and most obvious music video that has inspired us is "who laughing now" by Jessie J, as this song has the same name as us, its instant inspiration but we will have to make sure that we don't copy things straight from the video as it is a different genre of music. 

In this music video is shows Jessie J as her younger self, being bullied for looking different to the other girls and looking like a but of a tom boy, the moral of the video is that Jessie J is now the one laughing at them as she is now a famous singer, and is popular due to her individual style and interesting voice. 
The ways in which the video has inspired us:

• The main character in the video comes out on top in the end
• Set in a school
• The concept of revenge 
• Although a lot of areas are redundant the entropic elements are fitted in really well, which is something we hope to achieve in our own music video.

Another music video that inspired us is Panic at the Disco-I write sins not tragedies. As we would like to add some entropic elements to our mainly redundant ideas, we would like to include the idea of clowns, to give the video a theatrical feel. The music video by Panic at the Disco includes similar elements that may be slightly over the top for our video, but still they have created inspiration. 

The basic idea of the video is a wedding in a church. when the lead singer and a group of other people burst into the church wearing fancy dress and circus outfits, they then take their seats as if they are guests at the wedding.

The things that I like about this video are:

• The basic idea of the video is very redundant of a normal wedding in a traditional church, this redundant feel makes the entropic elements seem even weirder than they are.
• The variation of entropy used is really creative
• The video is very performance based but the performance is mixed into the narrative side really well

Probably the most similar genre to our song is the next video, Paramore-Misery Business.  The video is very similar to the style and story line that we aspire to achieve. The video shows a popular girl in a high school walking through the corridors and being mean to everyone. 

It is narrative and performance based at the same time and these two style join at the end when the lead singer appears in the corridor with the "popular" girl and wipes all her makeup off her face to reveal an ordinary girl. I really like the redundancy of the typical American high school and the typical popular girl, who everyone is scared off and wants to be friends with. Although the story line isn't to closely related the story line we are developing, there are many elements that we hope will feature in our video. 

Digipak Analysis: Arctic Monkeys-Whatever people say I am, That's what I'm not

This album by the Arctic Monkeys is a conceptual album and this is shown in the simplistic design and photography that has been used when creating the digipak. The album and band name aren’t shown anywhere on the exterior of the CD case, and even inside only the album name is mentioned on the cover of the booklet that is included. 

The fact that the band name isn’t mentioned anywhere on the digipak could mean that the band don’t want to be judged or labelled by how their music sounds, as if they just want people to listen to the music on the album without being influenced by others opinions of the band.

The cover image is of a man smoking a cigarette, the photograph is in black and white and is very simple, as if its just a snapshot, this could be to represent the person or band as everyday people who do normal things and have the same problems in life as the people that listen to their music. It looks as if the man is sat against a wooden wall, perhaps in a bus stop or in a smoking area outside a nightclub or bar. 

On the back of the album is a photograph with exactly the same technical features but the man has his head in his hands, as if he’s crying or is upset, when these two images are separate its hard to see a link, but when you find out the name of the album the message becomes clearer. On the front the man is perceived as a confident young lad, who has no worries and doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him, the image on the back could be showing how the young lad feels on the inside, about deeper worries and troubles that are going on in his life. These two images only portray a message when they are linked back to the album title-whatever people say I am, That’s what I’m not.

The songs on the album can all be related to the nightclub and bar scene, such as “dancing shoes” and “I bet you look good on the dance floor” and this also relates to the appearance of the young man featured on the digipak.

The interior of the digipak continues with the simplistic and basic appearance, where the songs on the album are repeated on the inside cover. 

The image on the CD is also in black and white and looks like an image of an ashtray, I don’t think that this image is portraying a message and has been used purely to create a cool appearance to the album.

 The booklet inside the album is full of colour photographs of people that others would consider everyday normal people, for example a trainee standing on the bus or some friends eating takeaway food in the back of a taxi. All of these people are what you would see everyday, and probably wouldn’t notice, but when studying their faces it is clear that there are deeper meanings to the images. Each of the people have sad or worried faces which makes people think there is something more harrowing going on in their lives. 

Creativity Analysis

During this project me and my group will have to use creativity a lot, we will have to think up new and original ideas in order to get create a music video of our own.
What is creativity?
Creativity is making something new, for example a new idea, product, piece of work/art, etc. Some people find it easy to be creative and come up with original ideas and others have to really push themselves.
How can you be more creative?
I believe that enable yourself to become more creative you just have to do it, you have think outside the box, using things that inspire you along the way.
Where does it come from?
I think that creativity comes from emotions and how you are feeling at a particular time, if you are really interested in something the creativity should just come with the interest to research the topic.
What role does it play in creating a media production?
When creating something to do with the media, e.g a music video you have to be creative in order to arrive at an original outcome that you are pleased with. 

What does creativity depend on?
Sir Ken Robinson says that creativity depends on whether someone is prepared to be wrong and make mistakes. He says that if people are not willing to do this they will "grow out of creativity".
Creativity is...
The ability to create original ideas yourself using only research and inspiration as help.
Do I Agree with Sir Ken Robinson's theory?
Yes I actually do agree with what he says, as a creative person myself you have to be prepared to take risks and potentially make mistakes and suggest the wrong things, but by doing these things you do come out with a original idea. 

In response to the "How To Stimulate the Creative Process" I don't think that creativity is something you can make happen, I think it is more about ideas coming to you or researching things that gives you creative ideas in general, and I don't think it can be stimulated.