Filming schedule

In lesson we came up with our filming schedule and outlined everything that will be needed for filming to be completed by the 19th of December. Our filmind schedule is as follows:

1. Wednesday 12th December, the drum narrative will be filmed
2. Thursday 13th December, all performance elements will be filmed
3. Friday 14th December , the guitar narrative will be filmed
4. Sunday 16th, the bass narrative will be filmed

Our filming days have all been broken up, which is not ideal, because members of the group have commitments that they need to take care of. It does however mean that more time can be spent on filming one section in particular as the time limit for filming doesn't have to be as long because the cast and film crew have spare time. We tried to make filming as easy as possible for each cast member involved, by working around there schedule. 

We also finalised our location ideas which are as follows:

1. The schools drama department green room - Drum narrative
2. Valentines Mansion House - Bass narrative (Pending)
3. A plain room with a giant chess board - Guitar narrative
4. Drama room three - Final performance 
5. The schools lift as it is the easiest to access

On top of sorting out the filming times and locations we also finalised the costumes and props that we will be needing for filming to run smoothly. The costume list is as follows:

1. Casual jeans and shirt for the singer before finding the drummer and for the final performance
2. Assortment of props for the drummer and the singer whilst in the green room
3. Suit or smart wear for the bassist, drummer and singer whilst at the mansion
4. A mixture of all black, all white or black and white clothes for all the band members whilst around the chess board.
5. All members will retain their original costume that relate to their respective scenes when they are at the final performance.

Prop List:

1. Mop
2. Chess board
3. Assortment of drama props that clash with each other
4. Drum Kit + Drum sticks
5. Bass Guitar
6. Electric guitar x 2
7. Microphone
8. Bass amp
9. Guitar amp x 2

Arranging to film at Valentines mansion

Before we are able to film at Valentines mansion we have to fill out a couple of forms that outline where, when and what we want to film when we are at the mansion. Below is a screenshot of one of the questions:

Other details that needed to be given out were contact details such as a phone number and an email address. 

Peer Assessment

Today we started a two column storyboard for the first 15 seconds of footage for our music video. We had it peer assessed by another group who gave us feedback on how we could improve the overall effect of our storyboard. They said that we had possibly gone into too much detail as it was 3/4 of the page but only 15 seconds of footage. They also said that we should try and include some shot types for the performance aspects of the video as it will structure the filming process better. It was also suggested that we try and use language that could be understood by everyone, as we had musical terminology in there that some people may not understand.

Initial Logo sketches

 Today I thought of two initial ideas for my logo that will be included in the digi pack. The first of my ideas is based around a sign post which corresponds to the name of the band that we picked, "The Lost Boys." I decided that a sign post not only fits the name of the band but also the philosophy that the band holds which is that they don't know what they are going to achieve in terms of their musical careers or how they are going to get there. When I create a version with software such as Gimp I will try to use bright saturated colours as these fit the ethos of the band.                              

My second design idea is having the bands initials on a vinyl record which is being played on an old gramophone or vinyl player, this idea is fairly simple and I chose it because it fits the image  we are trying to market the band as. I don't think this idea for a logo is as good as the sign post one, which was my initial idea, but I think that it is good to experiment with several different ideas as the first idea is not always necessarily the best.

Narrative Breakdown

We decided that from the information gathered from the focus group and questionnaire that our music video should be half performance and half narrative. We decided that the performance should be spontaneous and not planned out in any way as this is what we did when we filmed the year ten band last month. However whilst the performance aspect can be spontaneous the narrative needs to be planned out thoroughly so when we come to film it everyone knows what they are doing. Originally we had a few ideas with what we could do with the narrative and many of them included members of the band travelling, for example one of our first ideas that we mused upon was the idea of colour manipulation where the whole world was black and white and each member of the band was assigned a colour and every time they walked past something it restored colour to that area. This idea incorporated travelling as each band member would have been at a different place and then travelled to one final destination where a performance would take place and the destination would have its full colour restored, possibly even saturated. Another idea that we though about was the use of satire in the music industry and how it can be applied to the Indie music scene, we thought that the band could be stereotypically Indie whilst the singer would be presented as a mainstream Pop artist. You would be able to tell that the singer is a Pop artist because we would use stereotypical conventions that you expect to see from Pop music videos such as the common beauty shot. We eventually decided not to use this idea because we took preference to our final idea and we thought that more could be done with it.

Our final narrative that we are going to film involves the notion of travelling and links with many aspects of the performance. The basis of our idea is to have the lead singer travel in a lift, as this links with the songs title "Space Elevator," and then get off at different locations where different members of the band will be. Each member of the band will have a theme and it will be shown through the use of misé-en-scene, each band members theme will be incorporated into the final performance where each member will retain their original costume. As the lead singer picks up different band members their costumes will change to suit the environment that they will end up in. We initially came up with three locations, the first one being a prop room where the drummer resides and is wearing a variety of different props with many more scattered about on the floor, the drummer will also have a short comical romance with a mop which is also decorated in an assortment of props. When the singer stumbles into the room his costume will also change to match the assortment of props that the drummer is wearing. The hectic misé-en-scene relates to the musical stereotype of drummers being  insane, portrayed by many characters most notably the puppet "Animal" from the Muppets. The second location that we decided upon was somewhere sophisticated and classical such as a mansion, this location is where the bass player will be situated and we decided that he should be wearing a suit or something smart to fit in with the surrounding area. When the drummer and singer arrive out of the elevator they too will also be in suits or smart clothing to create synergy between all the band members. The sophisticated nature of the bassist' area completely contrasts  that of the drummers and they are at complete opposite ends of the class spectrum which means we would be appealing to a wider audience. The final location is the most interesting as we decided it should be themed around a chess board, this location is where the rest of the band meet up with the guitarist. We came up with the concept that the guitarist will be on a giant chess board playing a game of chess by himself or with another band member when they arrive. Once all the members of the band are collected they will then make their way to the performance location.

We plan on having a dynamic video that includes both performance and narrative in a non linear fashion to keep the audience engaged at all times whilst watching the video. We came up with the idea that we should reveal each member in the performance when they are revealed in the the narrative, however this contrasts our ideology of the band being represented as a unit rather than individuals as some members will get more screen time than others.

Data gathered from our questionnaires and focus group

We received eighteen completed questionnaires back and we decided that we would write out our basic findings before trying to put our results together to find out more useful information. However before writing out the results we decided we would get rid of the questionnaires that listed the person answering it as either thinking Indie music is bad, they hate it or they don't listened to it, we did this by simply looking at the first likert scale on the questionnaire. Out of the eighteen questionnaires we got back we only put aside two, leaving us with sixteen sets of results left.

Upon writing out the number of people from each gender who had answered our questionnaire we discovered that we had asked more females than males by quite a considerable amount, 11 of the 16 results we got were by females which in a percentage is 69%, this  meant that we had only asked 5 males to complete our questionnaire which is 31%.

Once we had recorded all the results from the data that we had collected we decided that it would be beneficial to put some of the quantitativeol data together in order to come to a conclusion of a more detailed analysis about the Indie genre and how audiences respond to it. Our first idea was to see the differences in popularity of the artists in the likert scale between the two genders and to see if certain artists were more popular amongst a certain genre. I created a graph, shown below, which shows the overall popularity of the artists when the two genders results are added together and also when the genders results separate.

We discovered that the artist with the overall highest average was the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, however there is a reason why the results given were not completely accurate. Only 3 people out of the 16 we used knew who the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were and gave them a rating which consequently gave us false results. The next most popular artist overall was The Arctic Monkeys who scored an average of 2.4, and the lower the number the higher the score. They also proved to be the most popular amongst the females that replied to our questionnaire. However the same could not be said for the males who completed the questionnaire, as the most popular band amongst them was Arcade Fire who scored an average score of 2. From the data gathered we can deduce that, stylistically at least, our band should have similar aspects to Arcade fire and the Arctic Monkeys. One big feature that both of these bands hold is that they have an innocent sex appeal that is more passive opposed to the outlandish approach that many Hip-Hop videos have.

We only had two different age ranges complete our questionnaire, the most popular being 15-19 which was 94% of our responses, the other 6% of our responses came from the age range of 25-29. Being as many of the replies were from the 15-19 age range and many of them knew who the Indie bands were we can presume that the genre is popular among young audiences. This assumption means that we should base our music video more towards youthful audiences.

Lyric analysis

Sun spinning inside my mind, Inside my soul
Sun spinning inside my soul, Inside my bones
Sun spinning inside my soul, Inside my head
Sun spinning inside my head, Inside my mind

Well space elevator won’t you take me so far

Sun navigator won’t you take me to the stars

Take me so far, Well take me so far

So navigator won’t you take me to Mars

Can’t hear what you say, You’re so far away

Say you’ll see me later, Wanna ride my elevator

If it’s possible, I feel insufferable

I feel the talk of the towns and never come back down

Sun spinning inside my mind, Inside my soul

Sun spinning inside my soul, Inside my head

Sun spinning inside my head, Inside my bones

Sun spinning inside my bones, Inside my mind

Science is trying just to figure out the facts

And I’ll be lying if you’re crying, Coz nothing’s making sense

Space is calling out to be a friend

All the stars are falling, But this is not the end

Space elevator won’t you take me to Mars

Sun navigator won’t you take me so far

Well take me so far, Well take me so far

So navigator won’t you take me to Mars

Are we lost in space (Are we lost in space)

Are we lost in space (Are we lost in space)

Are we lost in space (Are we lost in space)

Are we lost in space (Are we lost in space)

Are we lost in space, Are we lost in space

I've highlighted all the words that are repeated multiple times throughout the song and have a strong meaning when they are interpreted individually and not just in the context of the song. Due to the powerful nature of these words we should try and see if they can be incorporated into the music video in some way. I have also created something called a Wordle which is a visual aid and shows words that aren't that common in the English Language: