CD Cover/Digipak Research








 


From the above similar artists' album covers, we can tell that the main focus is the lead female vocalist or a female cartoon character. From these examples, it has become apparent that we could feature Ellie centre front on our Alleyways' EP cover. However, to 'stand out from the crowd', we could feature the entire band to gain extra publicity and/or attention.

The second Tonight Alive album, 'The Other Side' has a running theme of lime green and light leaks which is shown on both the front and the back of the CD. Lights' 'the Listening' is purple and cartoonish with a 'horror' theme on both the front and the back. Charli XCX's 'TRUE ROMANCE' has a running theme of spaced-out capital letters and there is a stark contrast between the white and purple but there is a trail of galaxy within her portrait on the front.
We are going to try and emulate these ideas linking the back and front covers of the digipak.


Video Interview Example - Tonight Alive Kerrang! Podcast


 This Tonight Alive interview is very informal and fun in nature. In the interview, the band talk about their album charting No. 5 in their country's charts and their upcoming tour. Jenna, the vocalist, speaks the most and all the attention is on her - no thanks to her bright green hair. She also speaks about the meaning of their album and how it is an accurate representation of the members of the band. The video also features behind the scenes footage of the magazine cover photoshoot.

Inspiration - Video Interviews

Ellie watched video interviews from similar artists for inspiration for our band interviews when we get around to making them. She researched female-fronted and mixed-gender bands in particular, like 'Alleyways', in the pop punk/alternative genre. We hope to complete both formal and serious and informal and fun interviews.


Paramore - The laidback, informal style of interview is one that we can easily recreate. It would be fun and not too much preparation would go into it. We could invent our own questions and have 'Fast In My Car' playing quietly in the background as that would be our 'debut hit'.



We Are The In Crowd - This is a fun and creative way of interviewing with personal questions and is more like a game than a formal interview. We could imitate the white background and let our 'fans' get to know us.

 

Tonight Alive - This interview is more formal with interjections of their new music video. We could achieve this in front of, for example, the green screen or a plain background and we could also use it to promote our new music video for Fast In My Car.

Artist Magazine Interview Research

To help conduct our own Alleyways' magazine interviews, I researched similar artist written interviews for reference.

Tonight Alive for Kerrang Magazine


Charli XCX for Wonderland Magazine

Lights for Faze Magazine



Using the above examples as a reference, we can adapt some of their qualities to use in our magazine interview. For example, the pages feature huge pictures of the artist accompanied by a bold title and their stage name. Within the actual interview however, the questions range from what the artist is doing currently, what they hope to accomplish in the future and a round of less serious questions. Significant answers are also displayed by the text in a huge font to attract readers to continue reading on.


Website and Digipak Analyses



I analysed PVRIS, Charli XCX and The 1975's official websites in order to discover the conventions of the alternative genre's approach to sites and the roles that different elements of their webpages play.



I also analysed Lights, Charli XCX and PVRIS' digipaks to help us construct our own as legitimately as possible.

All of the above artists are our main influences for this final task.

Inspiration - Websites

Ellie took inspiration from Paramore and We Are The In Crowd's websites when constructing ours. The first thing she decided on was the link bar at the top of the website and what it should include.


We chose to include photos, videos, and a store, taken from both websites, and added a 'contact us' taken from the We Are The In Crowd's website.


Our store has the same layout as Paramore's, with a grid featuring pictures of our merch (which we hadn't uploaded at that moment in time). Our photo page also has the same layout.


Our contact us page is based around We Are The In Crowd's 'connect' page, involving each individual member's twitter account and all of the band's accounts."



Music Video Director Research

  

Further Inspiration - Style

For our 'Fast In My Car' video, we will attempt to replicate the styles of Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola, Gia Coppola and Spike Jonze. Examples of their work that we will be referencing are Wes Anderson's 'Hotel Chevalier (2007)', Sofia Coppola's 'The Virgin Suicides (1999)' and Gia Coppola's 'Palo Alto (2013)'. Spike Jonze's 'Her (2013)' and his music video for Arcade Fire's 'The Suburbs (2013)'. All of the aforementioned pieces have a specific style or colour scheme that I am interested to incorporate into our Alleyways music video.

Spike Jonze's 'Her' - 2013
 
Gia Coppola's 'Palo Alto' - 2013
 
Sofia Coppola's 'The Virgin Suicides' - 1999
 
Arcade Fire - 'The Suburbs (2013)'
 
Wes Anderson's 'Hotel Chevalier' - 2007
 
To accurately integrate these influences into our video, we will all wear brightly coloured clothing and alter the video with a muted filter.


alleyways - Fast In My Car (Lip Sync Task)


Inspiration for A2 Final Music Video




The 1975's 'Girls' music video is a huge inspiration for our music video in its aesthetic - beginning in black and white and descending into exaggerated colours. We hope to begin our music video in black and white and switch to full colour when the chorus kicks in.



Arctic Monkeys' 'R U Mine' music video is also a significant inspiration as most of the video takes place from within a car. Due to the title of our song choice, we aim to incorporate a car into our video by attaching a Go-Pro video camera to the dashboard of Dom's car to shoot scenes for our A2 Final Music Video.
 


 
Tigers Jaw's 'Hum' music video, directed by Alex Henery, will be a big influence on our video too. Towards the end of the music video, the band will be performing in the cramped space of the recording studio where a revolving disco ball will illuminate all of their actions.

Similar Artists & Genres

 Copy + Pasted from Dom's blog:


"Despite being a Paramore song, this is the kind of video that we will hope to replicate with its fun and upbeat nature as well as the colourful and energetic background of the set. By drawing inspiration from this video we hope to create a high marking music video."

Panic! At the Disco


"This video is among the kind we want for our final media product due to the energetic nature of it with it being very hyped and flamboyant with quick camera movements and shots which accompany the high passed tempo of the song which we will hope to match."
 
 My Chemical Romance
 

 
"This band and the style that they present is a bit too extreme for our bands image however the style of there songs and the creation of their music videos is something that we can borrow from i.e. the energy they preformed on stage with and their initial usage handheld camera style of recording. All these aspects we will hope to emulate for our media product."

Group Timetable

Dom created a timetable so we can decide when to film footage for our A2 Final Music Video outside of school.


Dom
Jonathan
Ellie
Zahra
Mon
X
O
X
O
Tues
X
O
X
O
Wed
O
O
O
O
Thur
X
O
O
O
Fri
O
O
X
O
Sat
X - (Morning)
O
O
O
Sun
O
O
X
O

X = Not available for filming.
O = Free.
 
From this table, we can see that the days free for filming is Saturday and Wednesday evenings. We all also have each other's mobile numbers to contact each other in the event of filming preparation.

'Fast In My Car' Lyrics Timeline

Today I created a vague timeline accompanied with the song's lyrics to help us figure out how long we have for shots, certain verses and lyrics. Our next step as a group is to compose a storyboard for timings, lyrics and shots.

Three Final Music Video Ideas

After presenting three ideas of our own to each other, our group discussed which music video ideas we liked the most out of the 12 that we put forward collectively. We concluded that we liked the following three songs and subsequent music video ideas. It should be noted that both Paramore songs were put forward by two different people - me and Ellie.

Paramore - 'Fast In My Car'
Genre: Pop-Rock


I told the rest of my group about my 'Fast In My Car' idea and they responded positively to the song aswell. After little hesitation, we decided to create a music video to accompany 'Fast In My Car' for our A2 Final.

Nina Simone - 'Feeling Good'
Genre: Jazz


For this song, we were discussing the idea of the female vocalist getting up in the morning and walking into an old style bar as all the men gazed in awe at her beauty. However, despite liking the idea, we decided that the setting of the video would be difficult to replicate without certain permissions.

Paramore - 'Born For This'
Genre: Pop-Punk



Ellie imagined the music video for this song to consist of the band performing surrounded by giant lights. We realised that incorporating a narrative for this song would be difficult and so we didn't favour this track. We also thought that out of the two Paramore songs suggested, Fast In My Car was the most appealing.

Song Ideas for Final Original Music Video

Paramore - Fast In My Car
Genre: Pop-Rock



The video for 'Fast In My Car' would be deliberately cheesy to amplify the fun nature of the song. It would have a bright colour scheme similar to that of Wes Anderson's movies and as exhibited in The 1975's music video for their single, 'Girls'. The typography used would look fancy and be in a bright yellow colour - alike the example provided below. Instead of using a real car, we would set up five chairs with cardboard sides and a detached steering wheel to further give the impression of the band not taking themselves too seriously. The band would play around the "car" against a white backdrop and various colourful props.



http://cdn.filmschoolrejects.com/images/Directed-By-Wes-Anderson.jpg

Nina Nesbitt - Chocolate (Cover)
Genre: Acoustic/Pop



The video for Nina Nesbitt's cover of The 1975's 'Chocolate' would feature lots of typical indie cliches such as Summer fields, whirling camera shots and friends hanging out together.

http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/212/7/c/yellow_summer_fields_by_rekokros-d4287ol.jpg



Nancy Sinatra - Bang Bang
Genre: Jazz



For this video, the female performing would be centered in the middle of a room with a spotlight above her as she sings into an elegant microphone. A narrative would also coincide with this performance concerning a betrayal between two suited agents. The music video would be prominently inspired by Tarantino's movies with references to them throughout.

http://www.c-heads.com/wp-content/uploads/Lana-Del-Rey-Burning-Desire-Official-Music-Video-featuring-the-Jaguar-F-TYPE.jpg

http://www.replikultes.net/medias/uploads/films/pulp_fiction/pulp_fiction06_pieds.jpg