Animatic Storyboard

This is my animatic storyboard that I have created as a way to show all the shots I plan to use within my music video. The images were created with the use of my graphics tablet, I used this as I wanted pictures with a sketch effect but was afraid that scanned in drawings would either not show or it would simply be too time consuming to scan each one. There are a total of 101 shots used in this animatic which I believe is an acceptable amount for a standard music video, I will follow this plan as much as possible when editing together my actual video however I will definitely make some changes where I feel they are needed during the editing process.

Storyboard

Locations for my music video

First location

After deciding on the narrative for my music video with the aid of my audience research I immediately began brain storming ideas of possible locations and also the number of locations I planned to use. Once I has chosen to have a vintage theme to my music video I thought of possible areas that would present the time period of the 20th century. One of the places I thought would be perfect to consider is the Hull Street-life Museum, so I then began to plan what areas within the museum would work within my video.

The museum has a replica of a 1940's style high street which I thought would work really well for my theme and also give a very realistic feel to the video. There is a cobblestone path and old-fashioned styled lamp posts and I think the overall effect works really well. They also have an actual tram from this time era which I think would be a great prop to use, I plan to have shots of the artist sat aboard of it as well as standing by it as well.

This video I found on YouTube shows you around the museum and also the grounds around it, I also considering getting some outside shots in the grounds as I really like the maze and greenery they have and believe it would look like a 20th
century park.

I have used the contact email that the museum lists on their website, and have wrote to them asking if it would be possible to use the location for the filming of my music video. I was going to make no further plans that include this location until I received a reply, just in case they don't allow it and will have to look at other possible locations.

I did however receive a reply a few days later saying that they do allow filming at the location as a long as I meet all of their terms and agreements and also that I complete the filming agreement form. I will reply to their email answering their questions in the hope of finding a time that does not clash with any other events the museum may be having.

I have not yet had a reply regarding my second request for a filming request, I am hoping this day would work for the location.

Second location

I want to use just two locations in total and I am planning to use a green screen as my second location. I want to create a vintage feel and replace the background with the image of a tinted white/grey faded pattern. These will be performance shots and I hope to use the prop of a vintage microphone in these shots. There will be no problems with me using this location as we have a green screen at my college that is available for media students to use. I will have to organise my filming schedule and book the use of the room at the requested times as a way to ensure it's available.

Audience Research Results

Narrative Analysis of a Music Video

Sam Smith - I'm not the only one

This music video follows one of the eight narrative types stated by Kate Domaille (2001), the one it seems to follow is known as Tristan and Iseult. This narrative is when there is a love triangle, however this category tends to follow the journey of the person in love with another who is already spoken for, in this case it is the opposite as we follow the journey of the women who is the wife and already married to the man. The husband is being unfaithful and having an affair and although the wife knows she goes on as if she knows nothing as she still loves him and feels as if she needs him. 

The video includes two of the possible three forms of narrative, which are a story/plot which features people that have been cast to play roles instead of the artist himself acting it out, and also performance shots of the artist lip-syncing. The third possibility of narrative form is abstract, however this is not featured within this video in particular. 

Sven Carlson (1999) states that there are two types of clips which are performance clips where the song is being performed, and conceptual clips where the audience are seeing something artistic or ambitious so this would fall under the abstract form of narrative. The video features two different types of performance shots as we see the artist signing the lyrics as well as the cats acting them out as a story, so both are relevant to the lyrics themselves.

The narrative does not really follow the standard Hollywood narrative structure that Pam Cook (1985) identified. One of the areas stated is "Linearity of cause to effect within an overall trajectory of enigma resolution" however we do not actually see the cause of the situation but we do see the effect it is having of the marriage and especially the wife's emotional responses. We instead just assume that the husband is simply cheating and there has been no cause, as the women is presented as the victim and the perfect stereotypical housewife who is not in the wrong. It does also not offer "A high degree of narrative closure" as throughout the video we see the women burning some of her husbands clothes and we assuem she is going to confront or leave him, at the end though we see her greet him with a smile on her face as she embrases him which gives us the illusion that she will keep pretending. 

The audience will not feel a sense of narrative closure as we do not know for sure if the wife does anything about the situation, we are mainly lead to believe that she decides to stay with him because she is so deeply in love. These reasons indicate that the video does not fully follow the standard narrative structure of Hollywood, as we do not see the cause or the outcome of the situation and just the effect, leaving us as the audience with a lot of questions.

LIIAR and Textual Analysis of Music Videos

Hypodermic Needle Theory

The hypodermic needle theory was developed in the 1920's and 1930's, the theory basically states the fact that the media can influence large groups of people by "injecting" them with appropriate messages, designed to trigger a desired response, suggests a powerful and direct flow of information from the sender to the receiver. The theory implies that the mass media has a direct, immediate and powerful effect on its audiences, and assumes that we will believe what we see and hear. It also expresses the view that the media is a dangerous means of communicating an idea because the receiver or audience is powerless to resist the impact of the message. 

The mass media in the 1940's and 1950's in particular were perceived as a powerful influence on behavior change, this was because during these times they were less sources of information resulting in the audience thinking and believing almost everything they are told through the limited media forms of that time such as the radio and newspapers. A perfect example of this is when a broadcast of "War of the worlds" was performed in the 1930's, the performance was in the form of a real news broadcast and this lead to many people listening thinking it was real and that planet Earth was being invaded by Mars. This is a perfect example of a passive audience as they are believing anything heard on the news.

This theory however is now out of date and invalid as they are many more sources of media for us in the 21st century meaning it is no longer consumed in the same way. Audiences today are not as passive meaning that more up to date theories such as Stuart Halls used of gratification theory is much more accurate. However it can be argued that a form of the hypodermic needle theory still happens today, such as when people report fake celebrity deaths which have been found from unreliable sources, many people do still fall for stories and believe they are true if its all over social media.

Forms of Genre

Genre

Genres are the categories of media depending on their shared elements, known as conventions. All genres have sub-genres which are any other shared themes to divide them even more specifically.

Steve Neale (1995) stresses that "Genres are not systems they are processes of systematization", he basically argues that genres do not stay fixed and change to reflect the ideology of the era, meaning that they are dynamic and evolve over time.

Steve Neals statement proves to be true after analyzing some media examples from the same genre but from different eras. The first trailer we analysed was "Nosferatu" from 1922, this is a film by F.W Murnau and features the first representation of Dracula, this trailer shows that the victims are the protagonist and Dracula is seen as the villain.

The second trailer we watched was for a movie from 1994 called "Interview With The Vampire", this is from the same genre which is horror and is also about vampires, however we can see that the dynamic has changed as the vampire himself is the protagonist meaning the story is told from his point of view as oppose to the victims.

To summarise the change in elements of genre, generic characteristics across all texts share similar elements depending on the medium and typical mise-en-scene/visual style, including areas such as iconography, props, set design, lighting, temporal and geographic locations, costume, shot types, camera angles, special effects, etc.


Jason Mittell (2001) argues that genres are cultural categories that surpass the boundaries of media texts and operate within industry, audience and cultural practices too, they use genre to sell products. Media producers use familiar codes and conventions that very often make cultural references to their audience knowledge of society, other texts.

However, Rick Altman (1999) argues that genre offers audiences "a set of pleasures":

• Emotional pleasures, these pleasures offered to audiences of genre films are particularly significant when they generate a strong audience response. For example if you are emotionally invested into a media text you may take about the characters as if they are your friends and be genuinely upset if a character leaves the show.
• Visceral pleasures, refers to internal "gut" responses and are defined by how the films stylistic construction elicits a psychical response/effect from the audiences, for example felling the emotions of what is happening on the screen yourselves.

Christian Metz (1974) argued that genres tend to go through a typical cycle of changes during their lifetime. He listed these as the experimental stage, classic stage, parody stage and finally the deconstruction stage.

The strengths of genre theory:
The main strength of genre theory is that everybody uses it and also understands it. The media experts use it as a way to study media texts, the media industry uses it to develop and market the texts, and the audiences use it to decide what text to consume, The potential for the same concept to be understood by producers, audiences and scholars makes genre a useful and also critical tool when defining media texts.

Sub-genres/Post modern styles

David Buckingham states that "Genre is not simply given by the culture, rather it is in a constant process of negotiation and change." David Bordwell (1989) also makes a statement that "Any theme may appear in any genre." These two statements support the fact that a media text can not only have one genre and can be made up of a series of sub-genres as well.

Horror films are a good example of this as they are basically just modern day fairy tales which often features a form of morality where those people who break societies rules are therefore punished. Horror movies also feature the fear of the unknown where the monster is the "monstrous other", such as anything that is scary due to the fact it is foreign or different. This could include the plot of a personal journey or the duality of man, which is the conflict between mans civilised and his savage primal instincts, an example of this would be the incredible Hulk.

The fact that sub-genres exist proves that genres are not fixed and that they will constantly change and evolve over time, this can happen due to changes in society or simply the ways in which an audience change their opinions and react differently to media texts.