The Initial Treatment

This is the treatment that we presented when we pitched our idea to the rest of the class and the teachers.

Initial Treatment 2

Targets Since Presentation

Since our presentation we have come up with a few targets to meet before starting finalising our idea. Here is a list of our targets that we have set to be completed within the next week:

• Get all locations sorted and set in stone as they are the main elements in our music video and help it make sense and without the right locations the video will not work
• Get all the organisation for the shooting sorted e.g. actors and dates therefore making the shooting process a lot quicker and easier when it comes to it as we are working with a large group of people and various places
• Come up with an idea for our band, whether it is a collaboration or a distinct band, in order to make future stages easier to do

An Outline of The Presentation

When doing our presentation, our main goal was to focus on what the audience thought about our idea and whether they thought it would work with the song. As our song already had a music video created for it we wanted to make our video completely different from the one that was already made, and therefore our pitch was intended to find out whether the audience could find any comparisons or not. The main features we spoke about during our presentation were:

• Costumes used throughout the video and what they represented
• The different locations and why they were important to the video
• How our video would be prodominantly performance based as it makes up the bulk of the storyline
• A breif idea of who we thought our actors could be
• How the music video progresses and the different stages involved with it
• Who we wanted to make our video appeal to and how we were planning to do that
• The songs genre and how we were going to make this obvious by including various genre signifiers
• We then spoke about our overall treatment

We all completed individual sections on this presentation and then met on the Wednesday to put it together on a powerpoint presentation in order to make it easier when presenting. We also all sat down and finalised our treatment on that same Wednesday, summarising some of the indivisual things we had found. It made it ready for us to print out and hand to our audience when they were listening to our presentation in order to give them a better understanding of what we were talking about.

DEDICATED PAGES

The overall look of the websites should be classy yet trendy. Mirroring the slick suits (classy) and casual yet fashionable converse shoes (trendy). The background colour should be subtle, perhaps grey and white or white and gold and the font should be red. I chose red for the font as this portrays the passion, powerfulness and thrilling personality that the band has. The band would also have links of:
current music releases/videos - this sells the band and its latest releases and allows the audience to become aware of the latest music videos. This markets their products
Members page - Enaging the audience, and involving them with the band. They would get updates and previews of their songs, this would make them feel special and involved.
Background band music playing - To get the audience into the feel of the band/song. This also allows them to market future singles.
Gigs - This advertises the gigs, allowing the fans to see the band live.
A signature font - This would be the uniqueness of the band, setting it apart from other website pages. It has to be loud and wacky - mirroring the band itself.
Gallery - Photos of the gigs, members of the band allowing the audience to have insight into the bands background and to see how just how good the gigs are!

Styling of The Band - Epic Journey

• Dressed in suits with CONVERSE
• Playing instuments
• Part ska, part indie
• Long hair
• Girl dressed in evening dress with CONVERSE
• All have red hair
• Focus on the indie-ska cross over to market them
• Their smart yet casual image is focused on, the same way that Lily Allen was made famous by wearing ball gowns and Nike trainers
• The use of the girl in the band can help market it to men by having her on the covers of mens magazines etc.
• The band itself can appeal to the indie and ska fans by their dress sense, hair and music
• The prodomient male sex in the band allows the female audience to fantasize over them encouraging the girl audience
• Uses images which are in black and white with just thier hair in colour using the wackiness of their hair in contrast to their smart clothes to market the band
• The use of green and yellow are prodominant colours in their marketing campaign as these are the colours that feature on their album

Epic Journeys Marketing Campaign

Epic Journeys


The general marketing campain- We would set up a band website, myspace, facebook and twitter, so fans can follow them on their faveourite social site aswell as use these sights to show tour dates, broadcast some snippets of the music and give info into release dates. It will be advertised through Tv with adverts appearing on music channels as well as having adverts placed on websites like spotify, myspace, facebook and twitter e.c.t. We would give away a free track on itunes as the single of the week. This would advertise the album and give our audience a chance to hear our music. They could do an intimate gig and signing at HMV in oxford street, where if they wear a suit they get a free cd and a bowler hat.

A marketing promotion will involve a treasure hunt. The treasure hunt will consist of people being made aware of a treasure hunt where they can win gig tickets which is in affiliation with iTunes. The people will have to follow clues around a large city such as London to eventually get to the end of the hunt and get their tickets. The clues will involve things to do with the band and significant places in the city.

TARGET AUDIENCE FOR EPIC JOURNEYS

The target audience for 'Epic journeys' would a be a wide range of people as the group contains a cross of indie/rock music and also has both males and females in the band. The female artist would attract 12 to 25 year olds. The core audience being 14 to 20. The female singer would be an inspiration to the younger girls and her singing would appeal to most indie fans. The male band would attract 13 to 28 year olds. The core audience being 14 to 22, including all rock band fans. Younger audiences would be a great target audience for this band because the overall genre would be really indie and hip. fitting in with the younger generations. The older audiences would simply enjoy the music as it shows more of a variety than most music. At the same time, the male audience would be attracted by the attractive female singer, and the female audience attracted by the male singers.

Analysis of Band Websites - Epic Journey

The Arctic Monkeys Website:

• Black and white colour scheme
• Signature font - wacky, loud, trendy, current
• Gigs are listed to sell themselves
• News about the band has main priority on the left hand side
• Links on the top in order for you to look at pictures and watch videos to make the audience aware of their videos and make them view other things about the band.
• You can listen to their singles while browsing the website
• It allows the audience to sign up and become a member therefore allowing them to really get involved with the band it gives it a more personal feel.
• Store link allowing the audience to buy merchandise and therefore marketing the band even further
• The background is a replica of the font
• There is a link to forum therefore allowing the audience to talk about the band and allowing fans to chat and give feedback
• It has a link to their releases letting the audience know what they can buy and what is new, marketing their other products

The Arctic Monkeys MySpace Page:

• Black and white colour scheme
• Arctic Monkeys signature font - wacky, loud,trendy, current
• Connects with their actual website showing it is unique to the band
• Allows the audience to listen to new releases and other songs therefore letting them market future singles and letting the audience have priority over hearing things
• There is a list of their gigs on the right hand side letting the audience know when they are performing encouraging them to go
• Allows you to sign up and therefore be more involved with the band
• Lets friends contact each other and also talk to the band giving a more personal approach to the marketing
• Shows recent videos therefore promoting the single and the video and also the band
• It allows fans to add the band and send messages etc. therefore giving them more contact with the band

Lily Allen Website

• Multicoloured colour scheme showing Lily Allen's ecentric personality
• Lily Allen has contact with her fans over a blog therefore closing the gap between audience and the artist
• Shows Lily Allen recent news to keep fans up to date with her and therefore making them more interested
• Gives links to Lily Allen's myspace,bebo and twitter pages giving fans even more contact with her
• Shows her tour dates marketing her tour and encouraging the audience to go and see her
• Basic font showing that it is the colour that is the main focus of the website
• Gives the audience links to a store for them to purchase her merchandise and therefore promoting her other products
• Clips of her latest videos are found on the homepage marketing her music videos and latest singles
• It gets the audience directly involved with the use of links such as 'Remix your own Lily album' and her own game
• Shows pictures of her behind the scenes on the home page therefore getting the audience a more deeper insight into the life of Lily and therefore making their relationship more personal
• Allows the audience to get an extra album content therefore marketing her albums and encouraging them to buy more
• Gives the audience links to information about Lily Allen, lyrics to her songs therefore marketing her songs more and also herself
• It allows the audience to sign up to the website and gives them a message board in order for them to chat to other fans and give their feedback making the experience more personal
• It allows the audience to customise their own background therefore giving it a more personal feel for the audience

Lily Allen's MySpace Page

• Black and white colour scheme
• Allows the audience to listen to her singles and sample future singles therefore marketing her music and getting the audience more involved with her album before other people
• Gives the audience the dates for her tour in order to encourage them to go to her tour and promote it
• Gives the audience a list of her influences making them feel more connected with Lily Allen
• Shows her latest blog entries in order for the audience to keep up to date with her and giving them a more personal role
• Allows the audience to become Lily's friend by adding her and therefore get to chat to other fans and also talk to Lily herself through messages and wall posting
• Has a link to Lily Allen's twitter page encouraging fans to add her on there and promoting herself as an artist
• Has videos of her singles promoting her music and videos to the audience
• Plain font

Pitch Feedback

Last Wednesday we pitched our idea for our music video.
I was very stressful trying to get our pitch to come together on time but when it was done it was a great success.
Overall it went very well with the audience really liking our idea, however there were a few comments and suggestions on areas we could improve on. Here is the list:

• The obvious theme throughout the music video could be the rivalry between the two music genres and the two genders and them eventually coming together, however to make it more interesting there could also be the underlying theme throughout of the sexual relationship between the two singers.
• Nisha and Jack need to be able to show the chemistry between them effectively otherwise the video will be very meaningless. It needs to show full on anger between them at the beginning turning into passion towards the end and this change has to be made obvious.
• Our video is very much about the different locations therefore we need to finalise these first before we continue with our treatment in order to work around any problems at an early stage. Also it would make our shoot more time efficient if we spent 1 day at each different location.
• The Apple Ipod effects that we had planned to cut to, will not fit in with the overall video, therefore it wont be used until maybe the very last shot to let the video end on something unusual and exciting.
• Planning is key as we are using so many actors so make sure we are organised in advance otherwise it could all go horribly wrong.
• The video could end with a huge celebration with lots of hugs and kissing emphasising the coming together of the two genres and genders.
• We could also make our video narrative based as well as performance based with the hook of the relationship between the two main singers throughout.
• We were told that the relationship could reflect that of Mr and Mrs Smith, showing the violent passion between them with the anger and the chemistry.
• The editing in our music video is vital in order to show the relationship between the two characters and we need to have the shots in order to do the post production effectively.
• We need to decide whether our music video is for a collaboration between two artists or whether it is one band with them making a statement for their first video as their music combines both indie and hip hop.

Audience

As the audience combines to genre's, indie and r&b, we will have to appeal to two sets of audience. The indie side(maroon 5) will appeal to the less conforming members of society who are more into bands, gigs, guitars and long hair. Where as the r&b(rhianna) are mainly females into more mainstream music, dancing and fashion. We intend to appeal to anyone from the age of around 13(as to understand sexuality of song) up to any age but being reasonable about 40's as older are not that into youth culture and new music. We will appeal to an audience of fans who enjoy singers who can dance and perform their songs through sex appeal and catchy pop chorus' mixed with simple beats. Appealing to indie fans who enjoy people playing their instruments, who like to jump around to music and like their music to be different to that of the mainstream.

Goodwins Theory Applied to our Treatment

I get the feeling I ended up with the worst thing to do here...

Well, with the nature of the song having 2 genres mixed together, we thought the video should have too. There's 2 halves of the video, the indie half and the hiphop half. The indie half will be mainly performance based with a band consisting of mainly young males lip-syncing to the song. The location will also reflect this with it being shot in a garage giving the indie feel to the video. The hiphop half of the video will have a female lead with possibly more dancers in a dance studio. This will have them dancing, which is characteristic of the genre. The clothes they wear will also reflect their respective genres.

The visuals won't be illustrative of the video, they will have elements of it but not direct illustration. They will be more amplifying the lyrics with the tension between the 2 lead vocalists.

There will be a large number of CU's of the artists (money shots) of the 2 main vocalists. There could be some kind of symbolic thing representing the artist, like the logo spray painted on the wall in the garage for the band or a typical type of guitar etc.

We will make reference to the video for Walk This Way - Aerosmith ft. Run DMC where there are 2 genres both competing in the song. It will be having the 2 separate rooms on a split screen, referencing eachother.

What you know about the track, and the original band/artist

What you know about the track, and the original band/artist
The track is - 'If I Never See Your Face Again - Maroon 5 feat. Rihanna'

"If I Never See Your Face Again"

- written by Adam Levine and James Valentine

- A remix was made with the pop singer Rihanna, and then released as the fourth single from the album instead of the original video.

- The song deals with Adam Levine and Rihanna playing 'hard to get'

- It shows a love hate relationship

- The song received a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Collaboration at the 51st Grammy

The charts

- Debuted on the ARIA singles chart #28 on May 26 2008

- It debuted on the U.S Billboard Hot 100 at #57

- It debuted on the UK singles charts at #29

-The following week, the song fell a place but a week later it climbed back up to #28 but then fell out of the charts, however on July 6, the song re-entered the chart at #36

MAROON 5

- An American rock band.

- Debuting since 2002

- Since then the band has sold over 10 million albums int he Unites States and nearly 15 million worldwide.

- The members of the band played in a garage band called Kara's Flowers which was active from 1994 to 2001.

- They then joined in 2002 to create Maroon 5.

-Top hits: 'Harder to Breathe, This Love, She Will Be Loved and Sunday Morning'

RIHANNA

-Robyn Rihanna Fenty (born February 20, 1988)

-Born in Barbados, moved to the US at the age of 16 to pursue a recording career under the guidance of record producer Evan Rogers.

- Sold over 12 million records worldwide in her four-year career span

-Received accolades, including the 2007 World Music Awards for Worlds Best-Sellign Female Artist and female entertainer of the year.

- Rihanna has attained five Hot 100 number one singles.

- Top hits; 'Umbrella, Don't Stop the Music, Disturbia, Take a Bow, Pon De Replay, Unfaithful'

The Genre of Our Song and The Signifiers

In order to get ready for our pitch on Wednesday, we have been told to answer a few questions. I have been left in charge of finding out the genre of our song and the conventions of this genre.

For our song, it is a mixture between the indie genre and the hip hop genre, with Maroon 5 representing the indie side and Rihanna representing the hip hop music side.

The conventions in music videos for these two genres are:

Indie

• Performance based
• Guitar band
• Live performances in front of a crowd
• Drums
• Skinny jeans
• Long hair
• Polo shirts
• Lots of CU of the instruments

HipHop

• Lots of beauty shots
• Girls dancing
• Luxuorious settings e.g. big houses, exclusive clubs, sports cars
• Bling jewelry
• Focussed around money
• Glamourous clothes
• Either performance and narrative based

The Evolution of The Genres

Indie

• Fairly recently evolved
• Originated in the USA and UK in 1980's
• Complete control of their own music
• Rely on internet, word of mouth and touring to promote them
• Start being signed to independant record labels - quite underground
• Originally guitar based alternative music with artists such as Aztec Camera and The Smiths in the UK
• Distortion of heavy sounds with artists like R.E.M and The Replacements were found in the USA
• In the 1990's the emergance of new alternative rock bands led to the indie genre to refer to more underground bands
• In the 2000's the line between indie and mainstream has become less distinct.
• Many indie bands have looked to commercial record labels to promote them such as The Arctic Monkeys
• More underground bands have looked more to the internet to promote themselves and more and more websites dedicated to these bands have begun to appear

HipHop

• The roots are found in the African American origin in the 1970's
• The name originally came from the US army as the words mimicked their marching style
• Arouse in New York City in the Bronx when block parties were common
• The "godfather" of hiphop was DJ KOOL HERC mixing disco and rhythm beats at his parties
• Originally focussed on extending percussion breaks with an audio mixer and rhythm beats
• Jamaican immigrants provided the influence to the rapping in hip hop
• Hiphop music became an outlet for troubled youths
• The Furious Five was the first rap lyricist to call himself an MC
• The first hiphop recording was in 1979 called Rappers Delight by Sugar Hill Gang
• In the 1980's the genre diversified a lot more
• Hiphop evolved into people rapping over complex beats and with metaphoric lyrics
• Kurtis Blow was the first hiphop artist to be named a mainstream artist as he appeared in the Sprite commercial
• LL Cool J was also a huge mainstream success from his first LP
• It became more national and internationalised
• New School hiphop first came about in 1983 with records from Run DMC and LL Cool J with records that were shorter and therefore easier to gain radio play
• Hiphop's golden age was between 1980's and 90's as the music was so experimental and diverse
• In the 1990's hiphop became integral in all popular music with many American pop songs having hiphop components
• Hiphop diversified even more in the 90's with sub genres such as Nu Soul and G-Funk
• The 90's saw the rise of many big named hiphop stars such as Snoop Dogg and Fat Joe with their music styles being very lucrative with the public
• Hiphop in 2000's saw the rise of even more subgenres such as snap music and crunk
• Many countries still were unable to produce homegrown hiphop artists and instead imported the music from the USA
• In 2005 hiphop sales began to decline which many say is because the younger generation are tired with the violent image or just are downloading the music illegally instead of purchasing it
• Still remain popular with artists such as The Black Eyed Peas and Eminem in the Billboard charts

The Word of BLK

Now as the summer fades
I let you slip away
You say I'm not your type
But I can make you sway

It makes me burn to learn
You're not the only one
I'd let you be if you
Put down your blazing gun

[Chorus:]
Now you've gone somewhere else
Far away
I don't know if I will find you (find you, find you)
But you feel my breath
On your neck
Can't believe I'm right behind you (right behind you)
'Cause you keep me coming back for more
And I feel a little better than I did before
And if I never see your face again
I don't mind
'Cause we gone much further than I thought we'd get tonight

Sometimes you move so well
It's hard not to give in
I'm lost, I can't tell
Where you end and I begin

It makes you burn to learn
I'm with another man
I wonder if he's half
The lover that I am

[Chorus]

Baby, baby
Please believe me
Find it in your heart to reach me
Promise not to leave me behind
(Promise not to leave me behind)

Take me down, but take it easy
Make me think but don't deceive me
Torture me by taking your time
(Talk to me, talk to me)

[x2]
'Cause you keep me coming back for more
And I feel a little better than I did before
And if I never see your face again
I don't mind
'Cause we gone much further than I thought we'd get tonight


Looking for songs, we came across this but were gutted after finding out it already had a video.

BUT after pitching it to BLK, she has said that we could use it because it really plays to the strengths of our group with the combination of having a full band setup and a female vocalist that Nisha could pull off with the potential for her being able to dance.

She suggested a good idea would be to relate slightly to the original video with having the genders pitched against eachother, keeping an element of the sexual tension (we'll see...) but making it less sophisticated and much more raw and aggressive with Nisha being much more cheeky and aggressive than Rihanna is in the original video. We also said that it could, as well as having genders competing, we have the different genres competing too with the male indie/alternative vocals competing with the hiphop/rnb female vocals.

Ideas

From a lot of discussion and ruling out god knows how many songs, we've ended up with these few songs. Main problem being, that 3 of us like the song, while 1 person disagrees. So, so far, we're deciding from these songs... (Let me know if I've forgotten one)

Rise Against - The Dirt Whispered

Arctic Monkeys - Still Take You Home

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - Impression That I Get

Runner Runner - She Will Be Loved

First Post and First Group Meeting

We had our first group meeting today therefore our group is officially up and running :)

We all met at 12:30pm in the media block in order to talk about our individual track selections and come up with a short list of tracks, preferably one from each person from our group.

After listening to Jack's tracks and came to the conclusion that we really liked his 'I Want It That Way' - Dynamite Boy track idea. We thought that the fact that it was a cover could be a really good base for making the music video. We then went on to listen to Shaun's ideas and decided that the best song from his blog was 'Sunny Days' - Kid British. We liked the happy upbeat style of it and we could all picture Shaun's treatment working as a music video for it. We then went on to look at Loren's ideas for songs. After listening to her three track ideas we all decided that the best one was her 'Rock Your Body' - Black Eyed Peas, although we felt that the video may be too hard to create due to the fast pace and choppiness of the music.

Overall we came to the conclusion that Jack's track choice seemed to have the most potential and that was our favourite so far but we ended the group meeting saying we had to all go away and write one final treatment for the best song we had found and then we will decide after that.

So hopefully we should have our song idea soon :)