Location Permission Letter

It is important to seek permission to use a certain location when filming to assist with planning (so you know if the location is in use), to make sure that the location is available to film on and it is, above all, polite. It can be considered as rude to turn up and film on someone elses property without permission.

Track Permission Letter

It is important to seek permission to use copyrighted material as it could be considered as 'stealing'. It also assuages any fears that the track and material we produce will be used for personal financial gain.
In order to seek permission, I first researched the record label of track artist (in this case the Arctic Monkeys). I then visited the Domino Records website, where I was directed to the enquiries page from which I scripted this response.
On top of these reasons, it is just common courtesy to ask permission - for example, you wouldn't just use someone's rubber without permission and the same principal applies here.

Talent Release Forms

Advert Design - draft

The final magazine draft shows a deserted drum kit and guitar in the bedroom used in the Digipack album cover. It links to the title 'What Happened to Hardcore?' because the instruments have been left to decay as no-one is interested in pure hardcore anymore. In the middle of the advert there is an image of the band in a photo frame, which links our products. Information included: Reviews, logo, album name, release dates & formats and contact details for band and record label.

Our initial design of advert links to the theme of our music video track. The song is called 'Fake Tales of San Francisco' and in the advert we see the band standing by the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, reading a book that will feature in our music video. The band will be smaller than the bridge to show the artistic perspespectives associated with this genre of music, the band will also be smaller than the imposing bridge as it links to the suggestion of 'insignificance' in some of the lyrics of the song ('wedding without a bride or groom' etc.) - our colour pallet will follow this premise as it will black and white, with the faint red of the bridge being the most prominant colour.

The written material on the poster will follow the conventions, as it will inform readers of the band name, tour venues, tour name, prices, any supporting artists and dates - all of which is expected on a tour advertisement by an audience.

We will use this bridge as a replica of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and then colour it correctly using the PhotoShop programme:

Digipack Design - draft

- The front cover will consist of a dirty bedrooom, with abandoned instruments in the middle. This portray the stereotypical view of 'hard core'. The idea of the deserted instruments emphasises our message that what is now percieved as 'hard core' is wrong and fake and the original idea of 'hard core' has been left. The original idea was to have the instruments alone in a field, to heighten the sense of abandonment, but we decided to combine the two ideas for the front cover as it portrays both the idea of 'hard core' and the message of the album title 'What Happened to Hard Core?'
- The logo shows a crown forming a 'W' - thus illustrating our band name 'We Kings'.
- Our back cover will have a piece of paper with the tracklisting, as it will be something found in the dirty bedroom of the front cover. It will also include conventions like a bar code and record label details etc. to make it as realistic as possible.

Location Shots

Our music video will be set in a forest/wooded area, to emphasise the sense of fairy tale suggested by the songs title 'Fake Tales of San Francisco'. It also connotes the feeling of unreality and disorientation that is implied by the lyrics - like 'weekend rock stars' and 'more point to a wedding without a bride or groom.'

The final shot of the music video will be set in a car park, as the band drives off leaving one member behind.

As the singer travels through the forest he sees people disguised as 'wannabe rock stars' - perhaps he could see some here?

The band could perform here, as the log and mud hill create a really interesting boundary to a stage-like area.

The opening shot of the music video sees the lead singer waking up in a forest not knowing how or why he is there.

Shooting Schedule

A shooting schedule is important as it lists all the times and dates on which one plans to film - as a result you have a succint list of all the important props, costumes, actors, crew and equipment you need in order to film successfully. As we will be filming over two days, in two different years, the shooting schedule will be beneficial in keeping continuity and staying focused on what is left to film.

Costume, Props, Make-Up list

Costumes:


Props:
For props we will need a guitar, a drum kit and microphone for the band to perform with. We will also need carboard cutouts of celebrities who are considered 'fake' or 'wannabe rock stars' to fit with our concept.

Make-up:

Concept

The concept of our music video is to show the lead singer of our band walking throw a forest and seeing various people disguised as 'rock stars'. The location links with the idea of escape implied by the lyrics - wanted to get back a place without 'wannabes' and 'weekend rockstars'.



The band name is 'True Kings' and the album title is 'What Happened to Hardcore?'. Both names have clear genre-specific representations. Tonally, 'What Happened to Hardcore?' refers to the sense of confusion in our song choice, and the sort of pure music the song lusts for.



The first band name we decided upon was 'We Kings', and the logo (below) features on most of the draft artwork. To avoid confusion with another band 'We the Kings'










Our band will be dressed in genre-specific clothes. This will be plain colours, like black white and grey, and will be a mixture of smart and casual.

Storyboards

(view larger copy here)

The storyboard despicts the shots we aim to include in our music video, in various angles and styles. We attempted to create an animatic storyboard, however, due to technical difficulties we were unable to complete it. The experience did show how many shots it takes to construct a successful music video in a way that was, perhaps, more accessible than watching several music videos as part of the research.

Image Annotation

Lyrics Annotation

The lyrics to the track: 'Fake Tales of San Francisco' are quite complex, so it was important to sit down and analyse them. There is a quite disjointed imagery, so it was important to pick about themes to explore. For example, 'all the weekend rockstars in the toilets practising their lines', where we decided to incorporate this into the setting by filming in a toilet.

The intro has quite a distinctive beat which we decided to illustrate by showing various images from our music video, thus linking the lyrics of the song and the video itself very delicately together.

Initial Ideas

When we chose the alternative rock genre we had many ideas as to what sort of music video we wanted to produce. An initial idea was to do the song 'Fury' by Muse, but not much happened in terms of ideas for the song.

One song that grabbed our attention was 'Creep' by Radiohead - we got quite far in the planning, but in the end we were advised not to use it as the song did not have a prominent beat that we could demonstrate various editing styles to.

The final song was 'Fake Tales of San Francisco' which we chose as it had a jaunty beat, that had quite a simple concept but enabled us to get creative with the lyrics, camera and editing.

Song Details

The song we have chosen is 'Fake Tales of San Francisco' by Artic Monkeys (listen) - it is an alternative rock song, which fits with our genre choice and is in line with the research that I did on the subject of 'music videos'.
Our initial concept was to use the song 'Creep' by Radiohead, but we were told to not to continue with this song choice, because the beat of the track was deemed to slow so, arguably, it would have been difficult to edit to.