... Choosing a Genre...
For this part of our coursework, it is important that we work as a group to establish what genre of music we would most enjoy working with. We had a group discussion about the different genres that we liked and the different music videos that we found memorable. The recent social trend has seen a rise in funky house music, which me and my group members listen to, and therefore we thought this would be an appropriate genre to focus on.
...Research...
To begin our research we must first establish who is the target audience for the funky house/ R’n’B genre. We have chosen to do Attacca Pesante's 'Make It Funky for Me' because this is a very good representation of the genre.
They have mainly been promoted to through radio stations such as Choice FM and BBC 1Xtra. These radio stations in particular are targeted at young people who listen to hip-hop, grime, funky house, bashment and R’n’B. They also acquire breakfast and daytime radio play, meaning that their music is accessible to different demographics within the young people group.
The different artists that Attacca Pesante, Attack and Go Fourth, have worked with is another indication of who their target audience is. For example, Sway Dasafo is a grime artists and therefore will appeal to a particular niche, whereas Shea Soul is an R’n’B artist and appeals to a different audience.
The Target Audience
I have looked at the group's facebook page to further establish their target audience. I briefly scanned through the groups fan list and found that it was mostly urban females between the ages of 14 and 25. I have also realised that Attacca Pesante is in a very niche genre, with only 1,110 fans, which is relatively small compared to artists such as Kanye West with 21, 863 fans.
Their MySpace page, goes into more depth about what the group actually does i.e. producing and song writing.
Though further research I have discovered that Attacca Pesante also have received airplay from Kiss 100 Breakfast. This is quite significant as this radio show tends to focus to mainstream music that is already popular, rather than promoting lesser known artists. Kiss also has a show hosted by DJ Logan Sama, which concentrates on unsigned artists. Therefore Attacca Pesante are receiving twice as much airplay and reaching a wider audience.
The duo has also received ratings and reviews on the Kiss website. Although this allows listeners to share their opinions on what they like and dislike about the video, Attacca Pesante have received all positive reviews, with an average rating of 5 out of 5.
Using the BBC Radio Media Pack, we have further established the target audience as 16 to 25 year olds.
Target Demogrphic Profile
Age: 16 to 25 year olds. As this is an age bracket that me and my group members fit into, into will be easier to collect qualitative research from our peers.
Gender: both male and female although it does sway slightly towards the female audience
Education: College and university students, although some secondary school students.
Ethnicity: Black people, howeverthere is a high number of white people that also lste to this genre.
Vox Populi
Meaning 'voice of the people' vox pops is a media tools used to gather the opinions of the general public through video. This is easier than handing out paper questionnaires because it takes less time and people often find it easier to say their opinion rather than write it down.
We have composed several questions to be answered by our target audience. To ensure that we get the answers that are most applicable to the music video that we are planning to film, we will be asking friends that we know are interested in the genre.
Our questions were centred around what our audience would expect from a UK funky video as well as what they would most prefer. Brendon's blog outlines in detail the different questions.
As well as gathering information on what our audience would expect for the video, we also need to know what they would expect from the CD cover and the homepage.
We also need to establish where our audience is most likely to view our video. This is because there tends to be a difference in quality between musc videos to be published on the internet and videos to be shown on television.
Matu and Brendon have filmed people answering questions regarding our video.
We have analysed the results of our vox pops using Mircosoft Excel in order to have a clear illustrated of what our target audience wants and expects. Our 'Voice of the People' has been uploaded to Matu's Flickr account. She has also analysed peoples responses to our questions.
...Planning...
Story Board
Before we can start to ask people to appear in our video, CD cover and webpage, we must plan the scenes.
At this stage the story board is very basic, establishing the main protagonists and settings. So far we have decided on the basic timeline of the video.
We are introduced to the main protagonist, who is a young female and therefore can be related to by much of our target audience. She is doing a normal breakfast routine, i.e. eating cereal, listening to the radio etc. when her phone vibrates. The audience is provided with a close-up of the phone which has the text message 'Want To Make It Funky'. At this point the track starts and our protagonists begins to try on different outfits. We have various shots of her making her way through London to the party. When she arrives, the door is opened by a young man and the song changes to a remixed version. The video ends with an extreme close up of our protagonist and the young man face to face.
We have also decided to include a remixed version at the end of the video. This a common convention of music videos as it promotes the remixed version as well as the original. We have also realised that this takes the video in a new direction at the end of the video, therefore maintaining the audiences focus. We have found various remixs on Attacca Peasante's Youtube page. We have deciced on a remix that will give the party a relaxed but fun ambience.
I have uploaded a Windows Movie Maker version of the storyboard which is available to download from MediaFire. I did this because the file was too big to upload to Flickr or Blogger.
The plan for our story board was from combined ideas from our textual analysis of funky house music videos. I analysed Meleka's "Go", with is narrative music video with some scenes of lip syncing. We noticed that many funky house videos involved lip syncing, but those that didn't were more abstract. We decided that lip syncing would not be appropriate as it would lower the quality of the video.
Pre-filming Paperwork
To ensure that all our shooting goes to plan we have completed alot of different paperwork, most of which I have uploaded to my Flickr account.
Call Sheet: This includes the contact details for each member of the group. It is important that we ar all able to contact each other to ensure that there is no confusion when filming which could potentialy waste time.
Hazard Assesment Form: This allowed us to calculate how dangerous each location could potentially be. For example, shooting in a house is a combined space and therefore things may be broken easily.
Shooting Schedule: This is a list of dates, times and locations as to when and where we will be filming. This will ensure that confusio is kept to a minimum.
Tape Log: A record of what has been filmed, for how lond and in what order.
We have recieved verbal permission from Bromley council to film inside the Glades shopping centre, however it is individual stores descesion if they allow us to film near their windows and displays.
Changes
Due to unforeseen planning, we have decided to change actress to ensure that we can stick to the shooting schedule. We are now using Matu as our main protagonist, with Lisa and I as the extra girls in the video. This is much more convienient than relying on a person that has other major commitments and isn't always available.
This also allows all of us to have more of say on the different costumes and props that will be used in the video. Overall, this will ensure that we have a better quality video as our final product.
We are aware that the final cut f our video is unlikely to be the same as the storyboarded idea, espeshially due to changes in actresses and clashes in when different members of the group are available for filming.
Call Log
17/11/09: Organised photoshoot with Matu for the following day. Three different outfits will be needed as these will be for the video, website and cd cover.
18/11/09: Taken photographs. Final decision on shooting schedule for the following weekend. Rough plans for website and cd cover.
19/11/09: Cameras rented for shooting to ensure that all scenes are ready for editing on Monday.
...CD Covers & Webpages...
Each member for the group has began to collect and analyse different CD covers and screenshots from funkyhouse webpages. From this we have gather information on a number of conventions that we should follow to ensure that our work looks authentic.
For example, it is not essential for an image of the artist to be on the cover, however the cover still must drawn the attention of the target audience through colour scheme, composition and use of imagery.
Font/ Typeface... I have looked at different funky house CD covers and have noticed that there are two distinct styles in typeface. One is more traditional, which is used for more relaxing funky house songs such as Kyla's 'Do You Mind'. This style tends to be sans-serif and quite large although not bold. Also used on this cover is a very sophisticated handwriting style. This appeals to the feminine audience especially with the pink hue. The other style is alot more animated and is used for more upbeat songs such as 'Make It Funky For Me'. It would be easy to assume that because the original cover for the song we have chosen has an animated typeface, that we would decide to use an similar style. However, we must take into consideration how we have interpreted the song. We have used alot of evening shots, suggesting to the audience that this song is meant for a more sophisticated age group. Therefore, we must choose a style that goes in accordance with this. I have experimented by hand drawing several different styles of font and will ask my group which they think is most appropriate.
Image... Following the conventions of funky house CD covers we have three options, to use a photograph, to use and editied photograph or image or to have no image at all. The original CD cover have no image, and we have already discussed this as a group and concluded that it does not draw the audiences attention. Therefore it would ve best to either use a photograph or an edited image. We have several photographs of both Matu and Thyra (the original actress for our video) therefore we have enough primary sources to keep out options open.
Colour Scheme... from the results of our Vox Pops we know that our target audience would expect very bright colours to be used, however it was 50/50 on whether the colours should be compliamentary or contrasting. I have annotated a colour wheel to illustrate colour theory. It is also important to take into consideration whether the colour is warm or cool. Warm colours are found on the right of the colour wheel (red, orange, yellow) and cool colour on the left (green, violet and blue). Warm colour stand out more and draw the audience in whereas cool colours appear further back.
Composition... This is how the different elements are layed out on the CD cover. Would the image be behind the text or vice versa? What size will the text and/or image be? This is very important as this is essentially going to attract the audience.
I think that it would be best to plan both the CD cover and the webpage at the same time. This is because we need continuity between the two pieces, i.e. they need to look similar to ensure that the audience understands that they are both from one artist. I used Kyla, a funky house artist, as an example of this. CD covers and wbsite pages are increasingly becoming interactive. For example the new N-Dubz album cover can be used to unlock hidden media when held up to a webcam.
As I am also a Graphic Design student, I have experience with using different photographic and illustrative programmes. Therefore, I have the skills to create and unusual yet conventional CD cover and website. The first thing that I need to do is to sketch initial design ideas for both media pieces. One idea will be taken forward and developed into the final piece.
CD Covers... [Gracious K]...[BoyBetterKnow]...[Do You Mind]...[In The Morning]...[DJ Reflex]
Webpages...
