Some storyboard pictures

This is the storyboard Radhika and I made, it hasn't got the best quality images (Sorry Radhika) but we thought we'd get cracking with this process so that we could film. The ideas are all in place and on the back we made a thorough plan of shot for shot of every scene.

Marissa is the truly artistically gifted member of the group, so we also asked her to design a storyboard, which turned out to be amazing. So here's the original one, but it has to be said Marissa's looks more detailed. So i'm going to either grab a link from her page, or do a whole other blog post on it.

Questions for Audience Research

Please listen to the link above, it’s a song by Noah & the Whale, ‘Blue Skies’.

After listening could you answer a few questions, it shouldn’t take long. 

This is for my coursework and I would like some audience feedback.

1)          In your opinion, do you think re-naming the song ‘blue skies’ to ‘Nights of broken sleep’ is appropriate given that the genre is Indie?

2)         Do you listen to Indie music often?

3)         What do you think of the name Oliver Fox for an artist?

4)         Do you like the album name ‘Unrest’?

5)         What do you think of the general tone of the song?

Thank you for your time

Initial Branding

Today our group had a lengthily discussion and we made mind maps of ideas for names. Our group has decided on a name for our artist; he will be a solo artist with the name of Oliver Fox. We think this name will be successful as its sounds catchy and short so people will remember it.I really liked the name Oliver, or Olly, and I also thought his name should link in with the nature theme, Radhika agreed and suggested the surname Hound. However I though Fox was nice and short, essentially it was easier to remember and the group had a vote. In addtion we asked for the opinion of our class mates and they seemed to really like Oliver Fox. I think overall it ties well with the indie genre, the reason for this is that, his name relates in some way to nature with the Fox, and indie artists sometimes relate to nature in their songs, for example, the artist Birdy, or the use of nature in Florence + the Machines songs.

The track name we will use is ‘Nights of Broken Sleep’ we think this relates to the current song ‘Blue Skies’ as the story behind the song is about a boy trying to overcome feelings of pain, which was caused by the end of his relationship to his girlfriend. The broken sleep is the loneliness and heart ache. I originally came across these words, whist looking through a dictionary.

The Album name will be ‘Unrest’; this is because we wanted an album name with one word as it’s memorable, and it also leaves a lot to be discovered, it’s not simply putting a name that completely describes the album to a tee.  

Avicii - Levels

This video hasn't got much to do with indie music, but it's interesting to compare contrasting music videos. This particularly appeals to our sense of humour. However there is no real meaning behind this video and therefore this makes it purely performance based.The camera shots are very good, and it also ties with the music well, this is something our group could learn from.

The Guardian

The Guardian

Key ideas

·         The Guardian underwent a transition from existing as a solely print based form of news to having a large online presents.

·         In 2011 figures released showed the guardian had 36 million users per month

·         Number 1 in the world for user interaction

·         Print & online section integrated

·         The rise of Online Journalism, this is focused on technology and how people use the internet.

·         Mobile Guardian users are important, they even have a editor for this alone

·         Links & Search engines are important as they allow the Guardians stories to appear first or high in the search

·         Adverts for The Guardian have made good revenue for the company

·         Blogs have created a two way relationship; it’s more interactive and this causes good feedback.

·         Live blogs are a good way to keep readers up to date on first-hand accounts, for example the London riots.

·         A strong social media presents on Twitter or Facebook for example, is an excellent way to keep a consistent audience. This shows social networks are being used as forms of news.

·         User generated content has become a valuable resource for news sites such as The Guardian. This has led to the rise in the citizen reporter. It also creates a society for user commentary, and it allows others to connect and interact.

The change in Media

Netflix

Netflix is a subscription-based movie and television show rental service.

Media can be streamed by subscribers via the Internet and also by mail. The company was founded in the US, and started its subscription-based digital distribution service in 1999.

In 2009 it was offering a collection of 100,000 titles on DVD and had exceeded 10 million subscribers. On February 25, 2007, Netflix announced the billionth DVD delivery.

In 2008 Microsoft announced a deal to distribute Netflix videos over Xbox live. Now Wii and PS3 offer the service. Subscribers can also watch films on their tablets or mobile phones.

From what I found, price wise, Netflix charge a monthly subscription fee, of around $8, or £7ish. The company now has over 20million streaming members globally.

Facebook Beacon

Beacon was launched on November 6, 2007 with 44 partner websites. The Beacon was a part of Facebook's advertisement system that sent data from external websites to Facebook, for the purpose of allowing targeted advertisements. It also allowed users to share their activities with their friends. Certain activities on partner sites were published to a user's News Feed.

The controversial service, which became the target of a class action lawsuit, was shut down in September 2009.

In an official statement by Mark Zuckerber, creator of Facebook, he explained the failures of the Beacon, ‘Facebook has succeeded so far in part because it gives people control over what and how they share information.’ ‘Beacon would give people an easy and controlled way to share more of that information with their friends. But we missed the right balance.’

I agree with Mark's analysis of the failure of Facebook Beacon, i believe he wanted to create a better Facebook, that would share more information between friends and also show how they use the web. However it shared a lot of information to advertisers, and users did not want this adaption to Facebook. Mark also apologised for taking to long to correct the problems users had. Eventually, this was a positive outcome that the Beacon closed down, although it can be argued that now this issue has been resolved Facebook can find a right balance in the system, and incorporate this back into Facebook.

Wink

Wink Technologies is a community based social search engine. 

It uses elements such as social bookmarking, votes up or down, blocking results, to custom its search engine. It scans other websites, to build a larger picture of trends.

Wink released an early beta of the service on December 22, 2005 and formally launched Wink beta 2 on September 6, 2006.

Swicki

Swicki is a new development from Eurekster, it's a custom built search portal, which learns from the search behaviour of a community.

This means it’s easier to tailor your interests, as it can see what you have searched for previously. This means it has built up knowledge of common areas of search related to the user.

This service relies on interest groups, as it can learn from the information gathered about what certain communities want. 

Swicki is easy to share and this is a really advantage of this development.

Web 3.0

Marc Fawzi suggests that web 3.0 'promises to organise the world's information', he sees this as a brilliant technology that can change the world. It offers logical way of sorting data.

In contrast Sonja Hyde-Moyer from the SHM project, implies that technology experts keep coming up with new terms for the web, and soon there will be a web 4.0.

Health and safety concerns

These are issues that we need to consider fully and carefully when carrying out our filming.

Firstly, we need to make sure that the area we are filming in is practical. This means that it shouldn’t be dimly lit, in case of an accident.

We need to make sure there are no hazards nearby, for example busy roads, that we plan to film the characters crossing, climbing trees, filming near any transport like train tracks etc.

This is obvious but I’m still going to write it, we cannot light any fires for filming, or use any illegal substances like drugs. Also if we want to show characters with alcohol, then it should be faked, for example using apple juice in replacement of wine.

We need to remember that we will be filming in public places, and some areas can be dangerous, therefore it would be best to inform parents or guardians of our whereabouts.

We need to film on public property, unless one of our group members owns the land and has given permission for us to film there.

If we are filming from a height, we need to find a safe and stable raised area, so that this can be carried out without injury.

Public areas could present problems in terms of hazardous waste, for example the ground we will film on needs to be checked for, glass, animal excrement, cans and other objects that could harm cast members.

We should select a member of our group as risk manager, this way they can assess the potential problems with the filming locations.

Composition & relationships

Composition is an interesting arrangement of shots, which can help develop relationships between characters; one way in which this can be done is though the three main visual shots in film, the long shot, the medium shot and the close up shot. The medium shot is mostly used to show two characters and this will be useful in developing relationships, whereas the long shot is mostly used to show the setting/environment. If we want to progress the relationships of the characters and the narrative then we need to include lots of medium shots in order to make the video successful.

Composition in film is unlike composition in photography, as it changes from shot to shot, for example in one shot the tone and the camera shot could be different to the following shot.

Camera movements

The camera will move with the significance of the video and important shots. It will have to develop and flow with the characters and the camera shots will have to have some meaning and not random. This is something our group will have to decide, what is relevant. We shouldn’t add to many techniques otherwise it will take away the reality prospective, which audiences relate to, this means if there are too many camera actions people will become detached from the animation of the characters and their story, as they’ll be focusing on the camera action.

Eyelines'

Eyelines’ are extremely important in establishing what the character is seeing. This is a helpful insight into the characters view of the world. 

An ‘eyeline match’ is a film technique that starts with the character looking at something, for example below on the left, with Jack & Rose from titanic, this is  followed by a camera cut to the object or person they were looking at, and then we as an audience see from their point of view.

 So an example of the cut would be on the image below on the right, we see a number of shot's from both Rose's perspective and Jack's. (Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio.)

Points of view

The point of view is mostly from the character of the boy’s perspective, however in one scene we will see the girl’s point of view, when she is in the car. The story is mostly related to the boy and his feelings about this girl that’s why the point of view is from him, and his story flows with the theme of the song which is important in the overall conclusion video.

Showing movement

There will be lots of different techniques to show how the characters move, for example one frame with the character of the boy, will be using a snorricam, this is so we have a first-hand experience of what the character sees and feels, and this will be useful as this character is normally reserved and no one knows his true feelings. We will mostly be following the characters, so there will be lots of moving shots of them and also close up’s of their faces to show their emotion.

How do we show the environment the characters are in?

This is a short blog post on how we will show the types of environment the characters will be in.
Firstly to establish the environment there should be shots of the surroundings, which will show the audience where the scene is. It would be good to add unusual camera angles here, for example titled camera angles, or a moving shot of the environment, this will enable the audience an idea of where they are and also keeping in line with the indie style video. I think it's pretty self-explanatory how our group will use varied shots to make sure the audience understand where the characters are. 

It's unfortunate we can't film in a place like the image below : (

What colour palette and progression would promote the videos thematic development?

The progression of the video in terms of colour, should dramatically alter towards the climax, I think it would be suitable to use dark tones of lighting and also have a scene in black and white. This should convey an impression of sadness and loneliness.

It should also show the character of the boy, move towards a more chaotic state of mind, where he cannot control himself, hence he sees everything in black and white.

Another thematic development we could add, would be a white wash, this can be used in the scene when the boy imagines being with a girl, because this is a dream, the white wash will establish it as a fantasy.  

Cinematography

Extension- for pre-production planning.

We need to consider a few things in terms of cinematography, for example the lighting, the area we film in, whether there are people around that will distract from the aim of the footage, the characters themselves should fit in, in terms of clothing. These are all things that play a major role in the overall effectiveness of the music video.

The Great Firewall of China

Google China

China is one of the last communist societies; it offers us a different perspective of media organisation, when compared to our capitalist society. China is largely controlled and regulated by the Chinese government, even their three main TV networks, and broadband are regulated and chosen to be suitable.

Google was at first blocked by the Chinese government, but then the Chinese authority allowed Google a limited version. This limited version blocked certain subject areas like Tiananmen Square protest of 1989 and the Olympic Flame Protest.  Even though there is such a high level of control in China, by having Google is can be argued a step in the right direction of freedom and democracy.

We-Think

So today i was looking at a couple of media theories, and i came across We-Think by Charles Leadbetter.

He builds his ideas on the lines that the nature of the internet has revolutionised us, but he goes beyond the obvious reasons for business and consumption and argues that it has also shifted the way we think and make sense of things.

The major change in knowledge consumption, comes from the way we share information over the internet, this in his opinion allows us to be more creativity and innovative, as we are free from controlling institutions.

Leadbetter's main example is World of Warcraft, with over 1 million players it only needs 1% of them to create their own content. He then explains this in terms of education, where if 1% of pupils helped create 'player-developers' for education, then that would be 70,000 new sources of learning. This would challenge the traditional 'teachers' role, as students would be learning peer to peer like on a computer game.

Leadbetter is therefore challenging the notion that, computer games are reducing young people's learning capacity.

Media and social life are becoming blurred. Is the weakening of the boundaries between, computer games and real life a negative or positive thing? Only time will tell.....

A culture of TripAdvisors?

In relation to my previous blog post about ‘How do people in the UK use online sources to search for holidays?’ I would like to add more information about ‘TripAdvisor’. Firstly a quick definition of what TripAdvisor is- it’s an interactive travel forum, which assists customers in gathering travel information, posting reviews and opinions of travel-related content.

TripAdvisor has been under a lot of criticism for allowing completely anonymous reviews to be posted by anyone about any hotel, B&B, Inn or restaurant, without the need for any supporting evidence.

This has caused a backlash of hotel, B&B, Inn and restaurant owners, who now resent TripAdvisor, because they don’t feel it is being used in a way that the creators first intended it to be. Some even feel victimised by the way customers review their businesses’ so poorly.

It’s un-doubtable that Review websites, influence travellers accommodation choices. Channel 4’s documentary ‘Attack of the TripAdvisors’ was particularly interesting in exploring these ideas.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/attack-of-the-trip-advisors/4od

The opinions of the B&B owners, is that TripAdvisor is ruining their businesses, and they feel bullied and unfair comments are written about them, when they try to give the best experience for their customers. Some owners don’t understand why the customers don’t complain to the owners about their stay rather than write about it afterwards. The factor of power, is extremely important when considering review websites, they can now change customer’s minds on choices of accommodation and even destination, which can have a devastating effect on small businesses, which may consequently have to close down.

How do people in the UK use online sources to search for holidays?

How do people in the UK use online sources to search for holidays?

A number of trends and conclusions can be made from looking at ‘icrossing’s’ pdf, which summarises holiday’s and how potential customers search and book their holidays.

One inference made in the document, is that planned long holiday travel is more popular than, impulse travel. One explanation for this could relate to current economic climate, travellers would rather invest in a long summer holiday, than short expensive breaks throughout the year, because usually these breaks are made in cities, which can be very expensive. This is also another reason for why travellers have become more Internet savvy, when searing for holidays and finding good deals.

Holiday’s in relation to Internet searches

These findings below show the type of holiday’s travellers search for:

·         New York is the most searched for holiday, this may be due to good marketing, and good economic resources.

·         Most short break searches are in the EU. However New York does top the short break destination, which is an anomaly.

·          Flights dominate the most Internet searched, in relation to transport.

·          “Things to do” is the most common search term when planning a city break, followed by “restaurants” and “maps”. This means travellers are more interested in practical things to do, rather than reading detailed guides.

·         By putting cheap flights as your website name it automatically puts you ahead of competition.

·         Women are the organisers…..

·         Those aged 35-49 were most likely to search in all Breaks-related categories

·         Transport and accommodation was also dominated by Women searching from the 35-49 category

·         However the information search was mostly dominated by females in the 25-34 age range

A summary of the main points when regarding taking a holiday

1.                  Being visible for stag and hen breaks is an opportunity for travel companies.

2.                  The most popular city destination for a short break is New York, followed by Paris, London, Amsterdam and Rome.

3.                   Shortest travel times win over cheapest or greenest options when planning a short break suggesting people want the most time in their destination.

4.                   Women are more likely to perform online holiday research than men.

5.                   Consumers are becoming smarter at searching online, preferring trusted branded searches to more generalized ones.

6.                   Handy hints and lists of things to do are more sought after than descriptive narratives about a place.

7.                   The five most visible websites for breaks related searches contain user generated reviews.

The diagram below shows the leaders in the .com city break searches. As you can see lastminute.com is the most searched for, followed by superbreak.com, towards the end is Thomson, which shows the decline in travellers searching for established travel companies. This may be because they think they can find better deals from other websites.

In addition online sources are definitely affecting the choice of holiday and accommodation people want. This is mainly due to the rise of review websites, such as trip advisor. Travellers often look on these websites before they book their holiday and if the reviews are below average, they may select another accommodation.

Music Beta By Google

What is Music Beta by Google?  

Well firstly you have to download a small program onto your computer, and then point it to any folder or simply to your iTunes library and sync. Music is then sucked off of your machine and into the cloud. Once your music is added to the cloud you have access to it from any web browser, even on your phone!

What are the pros and cons, i hear you say...

Pros-

Access from anywhere, which is a plus for those leading a busy life, some of the services you can access the cloud of music from are your computers, laptops, tablets, smartphones, or any other web-connected devices.

It's easy to sort and organise collections of music. It can tailor music to your mood. The cloud doesn't take up a mass proportion of computer storage.

The cloud-based music streaming service will let users store 20,000 songs for free, that's twenty times more than the storage than Amazon's free storage.

Cons-

Once you sync, everything goes into the cloud, even songs you don't want.

I think music beta by Google is a great idea, as there are so many problems with storing songs to only one device. The concept is simplistic which most people will find easy to use. I especially like the fact you can tailor music and playlists to your mood, quickly and simply.

Web 2.0

What is Web 2.0? on Prezi

Costume

 H) What kind of clothes does each character wear and what do the clothes tell us?

The character of the boy will be wearing a formal black suit, as he is still studying at sixth form. This gives him a look of importance and an overall image of an educated individual. In addition the suit image fits within the Indie genre and this is the most important thing to achieve.

I also think that the character of the boy should wear a hat like the boy on the right is wearing, because this reminds me of a classic boy from the 1800's (lol). This revival of fashion is something that is common to the indie genre and vintage clothing is something that is quite popular.

The girl will be stereotypically dressed as an innocent female, with dresses and pretty delicate clothing. This will make her seem vulnerable like Red Riding hood and the big bad wolf which is an Inter-textual reference. However I think it will be a little impossible to have her running through a forest in white constantly, so we may have her dressed in Indie clothing. Jeans, leather and interesting jewellery and general interesting clothing should be used, if we cannot get white clothing.
The images above and below are the type of ideal clothing we would use, but if this is not possible, we will improvise. 

Props

F) Props- These are the collection of props will we be using; they are all relevant in creating an atmosphere that will allow our music video to look successful.

·         Car

·         Picnic basket

·         ‘Enduring Love’ book in boot of car

·         Red Rose

·         Note pad, and paper

·         Photographs in bedroom

·         Invitations to party

·         Computer

·         Gun (Fake)

·         Scissors

·         Handkerchief

·         Wedding ring

·         Wallet

·         Duct tape