Test Shots

Here are a couple of test shots we took around Thomas Rotherham College to see what our locations would look like.



























This shot will feature in the first scene of the music video where there will be a two-shot, before the music comes in. We decided to do this scene here as its almost like an establishing shot to show viewers where the music video is taking place (outside the front of college).
























This shot will be a crowd shot in the music video where three people will be sat in a classroom doing work. It will be composed as follows; a boy and a girl sat close to the camera (messing about and laughing) with another girl sat behind them and in between to show that she is alone (contrasting).
















This shot will show two people walking down the slope around college grounds in the music video. We have included this in the narrative shots as it is important for the audience to see that the boy and girl are happy while the other girl is sad. Although this is from a high angle shot I don't think we will use this angle in the actual video as it is too limiting and there are certain health and safety regulations which we have to take into consideration.

Music Video lyrics

Here are the lyrics for Untouched, we have shared the lyrics out as evenly as possible. The narrative will take over some of the performance shots so you will not see Me (Lucy) or Fran singing the whole verse as a whole as this would be boring and very unusal in a pop genre music video.

The editing between the narrative and performance shots will be fast and simple to that the audience understand what's going on in the video.

Copyright letter to EMI

Thomas Rotherham College
Moorgate Road
Rotherham
S60 2BE


Dear Jonathan Channon,

We are students at Thomas Rotherham College currently studying Media. For our A-level coursework we will be recreating a music video and would like to use ‘The Veronicas – Untouched’ for our project.

The video will be purely for educational purposes and will not be used for broadcast. It will be viewed by our class mates, teachers, parents and the exam board when the coursework is submitted.

All of the song writing and publishing credits will be acknowledged, but we hope it is ok for us to use the song.

If any issues arise from this, please let me know. Please contact our teacher James Finlayson at the above address.

Yours

Emma Huggins, Lucy Farrell and Frances McGrother
TRC Students.

Course requirements and brief

As part of the course it expected that the group must create promotional products to support the music video. Here is the brief which my group is following;

Brief 1: A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three ancillary tasks:

A website homepage for the band;
A cover for its release on a Limited Edition CD;
A magazine advertisement for the CD.

The two ancillary tasks which my group are to create are; a cover for its release on CD and a magazine advertisement for the CD.

Directly above is a net of a CD case which we will use as a rough out line for the promotional music video CD.

Script for Music Video

For the first 0-40 seconds or so we have decided to include a little dialogue to create a situation which will have relevance to the song and will come in after the scene ends. Below is our final script.

Research into Album/Single Covers

To make our media product believable we decided that the best way to promote 'our' music video is to create a single CD featuring the band, The Veronicas (Fran and Lucy) and the song, Untouched but also with the music video on as well. So, to be able to do so we did some research into existing pop genre album covers to give us an idea of whats already on the market, and our competition. Here are a few examples of some of the biggest selling pop artist around;

Britney Spears - Britney Album

(Left) This is Britney's third album that was released in 2001 which was the most successful album for a female artist or female group and sold 12 million copies world wide.
Personally, i really like the sepia effect used on Britney herself, it makes her look rather isolated and sad because of the dull, drab colours which may refer to some of the songs on the album as being a little more 'down beat', however she is surrounded by a lot of blue and pink which brightens the cover up along with the typography which happens to be in contrasting yellow which makes it stand out significantly although i don't like it because it doesn't blend as well as it should, it looks like its not well designed and out of place. Britney is centrally positioned on the cover which is a very common stance for an album cover but her actual pose has connotations of desperation as she looks almost as though shes begging.

Christina Aguilera - Stripped Album

(Left) This is Christina Aguilera's second English studio album which sold over 12 million copies worldwide and was released in 2002.

I love this album cover as its so simple but effective. Its all monochrome which makes in look slightly old fashioned but with the contrast of the modern font typography it bring it into the 21st century. Also it seems as if there is anchorage between the words Christina Aguilera as they are at either side of the artist with her standing in the middle to make it obvious who she is. It catches your attention because its bare and makes a clear statement, its very iconographic and easy to spot which is very good advertising. Christina is positioned in the centre of the CD case and is stood in a hip 'swaying' stance. She is objectified as a sexual object, as Laura Mulvey's theory would suggest, as she is wearing no top and is letting only her hair cover her chest which is quite provocative, also her jeans are laced fastened and look as if they are slightly coming open this is also another way in which she is being objectified as a sexual object. The actual title of the album is in a smaller size than the artists name which is quite frequent in pop genre music albums.

Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway

(Left) This was Kelly Clarkson's second studio album which was released in 2004 and sold 13 million copies worldwide.
I really like the different types of typography used on this album as it makes it very stylised. Kelly Clarkson has been positioned to take up more than half of actual album cover, as she is the main selling point of the album/ song as she has been edited to look flawless. She is posing in a stance which connotes she herself needs to 'breakaway' (album name) as she looks quite stressed with her hands holding her head and messy hair.

The colour scheme is very natural with only using, brown, grey and black to keep it simple and not too busy.

Initial Ideas Sheet

Below is our initial ideas sheet, it explains what song, the location of the video, the purpose of the product, any props we may use in the video, the target audience and where or how the product shall be distributed for each idea.

Ideas Presentation

Audience Feedback

Here are a few of our audience feedback sheets which the audience filled in after we showed our presentation on our three final ideas.

Research into single performances

These are performance shots from a pop/RnB video by Paula DeAndra called 'Easy'. As you can see she has a lot of make up on and is wearing up to date, fashionable clothing. Her hair's been straightened and has been given a 'wind' effect by placing a fan in front of her and used a close up to show the detail on her face(top left). The background looks lush by the bright purple colour scheme which is incorporated onto the artist but contrasts with her clothing to make her stand out from the back-drop, here they have used a long shot to show the whole outfit(top right). In the bottom right scene the producer has decided to use a stereotype that girls like starkly pink things because they have connotations of femininity. Bottom left, heres a long shot of both the featured artists in the song with a 3D back-drop. The female artist has changed clothes to match the colour scheme of the back-drop, and to show off her wardrobe. The two artists are shown together becuase it is good publicity for the audience to know that they are friends, and look like they 'hang out' together.

Pop music codes and conventions

The word pop is actually short for 'popular' which suggests that pop genre music videos should include 'popular' or new things. For example; in all pop genres music videos the artists are represented to have all the newest technologies and fashionable clothing which is a popular interest in today's society because people like to have new, 'cool' things that none else has, to show off, these ideas all stem from pop genre music videos as they supply this idea.