our target audience.

Now that I have a better understanding of profiling, which I spoke about in the previous post, the one about JICNAR’s and VALS, I can better understand the audience in which our band Glass Animals appeal too. The music Glass Animals produce falls into the niche of attempting to be original and unique, indie type of vibe, while in reality it is pretty pop orientated. I call this type of music the LORDE complex. I think around three/four years ago Lorde came about, a singer from I believe New Zealand, she had a pretty unique and original sound, however in reality one of these stars pop up every two or three years therefore making them somewhat stereotypical and somewhat ironic. Anyways, Glass Animals aren’t even that unique or original due to them jumping on the band wagon of the acclaimed winey nasal sounding band known as ALT J. However, moving on from this Glass Animals are clearly trying to access a niche market of an audience that feels misunderstood and seek release in the lonely sounding voice of the Glass Animals singer. This music lacks judgement and therefore makes it easy listening and some whats safe. Therefore myself and my group believe that our target audience would be men between the ages of 25 and 30.

25 right, 30 year old left. This is our target audience.

The band most come across organic rather than synthetic otherwise its image of new and indie becomes obsolete and would drastically damage the target audiences image of the band. After extensive research I found that our band has very similar characteristic to ALT J and IMAGINE DRAGONS. What was clear from my secondary research was that the target audience for these bands where predominantly men between the ages of 25-30, although i believe that our song in particular (“TOES”) is directed predominantly at female due to the lyrical devices used through ought the song. Because of this our concept for the music video somewhat compliments these results due to the music video being somewhat artistic and dark which caters generally for a more male audience the music and the artistic elements can still be appreciated by the females audience.

Below is a mood board I created on what I think our target audience would be interested in that highlights their lifestyles.

Ok so here is a brief explanation of what this all means. On the right of my mood board there are a lot of music elements. Our audience member is interested in ALT J the indie rock band, and uses streaming sites such as spotify and soundcloud, because itunes isn't very cool. However, on the subject of music they are interested in trying to play an instrument and invest money into records. On the left side of the audience member you will find that there is a GTA poster because our audience like to escape reality and live someone else's life for a bit. They like to take photos and watch films, also they are intrigued in how to make films, and see themselves as a critic of films, and usually end up watching something by a director who no one can pronounce their name. Our audience members are also into philosophy as they are curious of different things, this is shown through their social media usage, their two prime outputs are twitter and instagram. Twitter because they like to have people listen to their opinions. Instagram because our audience members like their perspective of the world to be appreciated.

So what are JICNARS and VALS?

Thats a good question. VALS and JICNARS are different methods for segmenting target audiences. This is a necessary method for any label or artist, actually well for anyone trying to sell anything due to you being able to properly understand your targets wants and needs.
JICNARS is a scale used to divide up audiences into social grades. JICNAR stands for Joint Industry Committee for National Readership Surveys, in other words its just a survey that divides people up into group helping other people make judgements about those people. JICNAR is a common demographic segmentation tool used by institutions and academics to be able to build up detailed accounts of audiences.

Here is an image of the grading scale.

However this method of segmenting audiences is somewhat outdated. Due to it being primarily focused around ones education, salary and skill, our social environments evolving we find that C2 in some instances can be making more than A/B due to practical work being at a higher demand, therefore C2’s are able to charge higher prices.

So far what we have learn’t from this post is that JICNAR’s are a profiling tool, and now we move onto VALS, which are unlike JICNAR’s which focus on demographic segmentation, VALS focus on psychographic segmentation, this is known as the lifestyle profiling. VALS stand for Values, Attitudes and Lifestyle classification system.This method of profiling combines both psychological profiling of the consumer, with idea about how they conduct their life in the market place, which is used in order to predict consumer consumption. Attitudes, values, beliefs and lifestyle choices are all sorted into a number of distinctive categories segmenting up the audience.

Here are some VALS.

These profiling techniques enable institutions the ability to manipulate audiences into purchasing the products that institutions are trying to sell next.

The VALS shown above are strictly for adults. Teenagers are a completely different story. You will see a similarity in VALS from above but directed at a younger audience.

From what has been described and showed above I believe we can come to the conclusion that the profiling technique of VALS, especially, is a reductionist method of categorising audiences behaviours due to it not taking into the account of the whole person but rather a group. However when you do look at the bigger picture, in reality you find everyone is as original as they like to believe, everyone is unique as their own but once the lens is lifted you see that groups for example gender, illustrate how easily mass amounts of people become one. This allows institutions to narrow down who would be interested in their artist and how they can target them.

my response to feedback [tv animation]

(here is me filming the tv animation asset)

The animation between the narrative and the performance.
So my idea of what should happen to display the two realities is have the camera warp into the screen of the TV where the performance is taking place and enter the world of the performance and continue with that element within that reality.

Right so how am I going to accomplish this. If you go back to the beginning of my blog which I doubt you will, in more short bio I talk about how I initially got into film. It was like magic to me… VFX. I needed to know how these amazing effects could be done. So I began teaching my self after effects and loads of basic techniques to create little fun sketches. 5 years later I am going to be heading down the path of VFX and through tracking, masking, compositing, colour correcting and some other effects I will hopefully be able to create a convincing piece.

This for me is one of the most important elements. If I am unable to make it look 100% we will have to go down the root of practical effects, which would usually be my primary choice, however due to time constraints this is not an option. Therefore I must attempt to create a convincing VFX sequence.

Its been a while since I have hopped into after effects. Its been more then three years therefore I am quite rusty.

I began by shooting some test footage of how it would potentially go down. I dollied the camera as close as I could to an TV we had laying around the house. I shot everything in slow-motion so everything would appear smoother. The room was very dark and in the future I will 100% post markers on the TV making the tracking stage a breeze, however this time round it didn't go so smoothly.

I shot some other footage just of my self dancing, this would be the reality within the TV.

Then I hopped into after effects after watching some tutorials to refresh my memory and I was away. The primary effect I was trying to accomplish was the warp, this would establishing the penetration through the glass into a new reality.

Here is a time-lapse of what I got up to. This is roughly one hour and half session within after effects sped up to be less then a minute for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy.

and here is the final piece.

Ok so here are the excuses. I had less then a week to complete this, and with the filming and the relearning of some after effects techniques it took much longer then I thought and the end result is way off from what I want. The end result looks awful. Not just because the wacky colour grading but everything. I feel embarrassed even posting this. But I have had to in order to show my group the promised blog in response to the feedback from the group and the set tasks.

This was an important task, as it has shown there is a lot of developing necessary to make this effect look effective and this is going to take a lot of practice, I will keep you updated on this matter through ought the blog and I will go back in the field soon to get some better organised footage and I am going to research more into accomplishing this effect.

Groups response to feedback

It was time to delegate, we needed to start developing our ideas as soon as possible and creating something that will put our piece on to the next level. The tasks have been split up like this :
JESS - is going to working on the TV KIDS three stages of life (ok, dying, dead).
GEORGIA - is going to focus on the design and development of the TV KID imagery.
CLAUDIA - is going to develop/refine the purpose of the business men and make them more intrigue/interesting to watch.
MYSELF - I am going to research and create a mockup of the animation into the TV world.

Feedback for main idea.

Last week it was time for our group to present our developed idea to the media department. We needed the idea to be green lit to go ahead with it otherwise they would send us back to rethink it or develop certain aspects. At this stage I would hope to not get green lit as this would mean that we would have nothing to develop and mean that we would be ready to shoot. I like the main idea we have at the moment however I feel it needs a lot of developing to become a masterpiece.

Anyways I went up first to present our initial idea, I went through the treatment and described what the group and I wanted. Once I was done with the presentation the media department had a lot to say.

They liked our modern take on how we would treat the artists through ought, being silhouette, hiding their identity, this is a trend at the moment with artists such as daft punk to sia, making it more about the music themselves. The artist would perform in the realm of the TV and one of the teachers recommend that we have multiple TV’s which as an idea I love. I even put an image of multiple TV’s stacked up in our treatment, however unfortunately at this point we are unable to go through with this due to another group in my class wanting to have stacked TV’s too and their main idea is focused around the amalgamation of tv sets. To beef up the single TV I think I might design a tv element with thick wires flying out the back side of it, kind of making an aura of wires and junk around the tv, this is what the girl/boy would be attached too (the tv kid). Onto wiring, a good point that the media department made was that if the wires are coming from the tv kid’s head then the audience will assume what is being shown on the TV set will be from her imagination, which I completely agree, as I would like it to appear more that her soul/young energy is powering the TV we came up with having the wires attached to her back, like a shell. As we where discussing the symbolism of the tv kid and the tv i suggested that as the tv kid dies that the tv saturation decreases, or on a more spiritual note we could have her have bright saturation at the beginning and the end, and during the middle just light saturation, highlighting the need of these old men needing the colour in their lives that can only be found at birth and death. Another point made with the death of the tv kid is that we need to be careful with how dramatic it appears, due to this being quite a complex piece if one element is not sold right that the whole thing could fall flat (this will be more relevant in the directing stage of the piece on the shoot day). On that note the told us to think about how she would die, which is an important factor.

Now on to the dance element. In the media department loved the idea of glimpse of lights, as if bars shining down on the dancer, who would be dressed in hospital patient clothing. They liked how it emphasised her being trapped but also could be seen as the white keys on pianos. However, at the moment they believe the dancing doesn’t fit, and I completely agree, what we had was more of a contemporary dance, but the media department suggested we had a more intricate somewhat awkward dance that would fit our overall piece.

Finally the business men. Now this one of the most important elements within the piece which is in the same reality of the kid strapped to the TV and the dancer in the jail cell. The feedback was very clear, the business men at the moment t didn’t have enough going on which for the audience will become boring very quickly, therefore they believed we should push the idea of them being very sick, which as an element i believe is already there as they are using a kids energy for their entertainment. However I completely agree we need to expand heavily on this element.

Here are the main pieces of feedback given
• develop on every element and refine them all till they work in synchrony.
• this is a big production and if 150% effort not given to make the project what it could be it will fall flat.
• delegate the tasks within the group to speed up the working process.
• overall a very nearly complete idea.

Treatments

Here are the two treatments that have been created for our pitch. The first treatment is for our main idea, while the second treatment is for our backup idea, this treatment was made up by the talented Claudia and Georgia from my group.

TOES TREATMENT from Ashen Page

This is the song that spoken about in the treatment.

this is the dance mentioned in the piece for the 3rd element.


If all goes south and our main idea doesn't go through do to it being too complicated or it being done by another group than it would be necessary to do our back up idea. This is our back up idea.

BACKUP IDEA TREATMENT from claudiak101

This is the song that spoken about in the treatment.

talk from polydor records.

Today our tutors invited Polydor Records to talk to the media students about there process for music videos. 


Polydor Records have worked with a vast amount artists. shown in the picture below.

http://www.polydor.co.uk/

Polydor Records have been around since the 1920's therefore they must doing something right. I was very excited to have such a  up and close experience with people working closely in the industry. 

Anyways here are my notes I made from the talk.

• get artists perspective - detailed discussion on there image and with the marketing team, if they have a lot of input they will team them up with similar styled directors, if not they prob them for stuff they are into. Get the bands/artists personality across.
  
• creating a treatment - vid/picture references. cut reference footage to the music, helping give a clear image of the end product. Grab ones attention.
  
• being clear on every level. Shotlists. Storyboards. Communication is key.
  
• simple and achievable ideas are the best.
  
• structure - have a visual arc, how the song builds and falls
  
• cover everything, always get more just as back up.
  
• £5k - £20k budgets

the developed idea and music.

Three old men sit in a bleached white room. They sit in old luxurious single sofas separated from one. With wine and cigar in hand they star blankly into a stack of TV’s in the middle of the room. The TV’s are about three meters away from them. The man in the middle pulls up a remote and turns on the TVs. Electricity pulse through ought the room as the TV flicker on. The TV displays is in colour displaying a heavenly performance of a band. The camera gets sucked into the reality of the performance slowly slipping into the TV’s glass screen. We are shown the performance of the band. We come back to the reality of the old men and the camera slowly pans round the TVs to reveal a small boy/girl sitting behind the TVs. Strapped in wires the boy/girl begins to fade away through ought the music video becoming thinner and thinner. Through ought the music video there will be a dancer in hospital patient clothing being cut in through ought the piece. Finally the girl/boy strapped to the TV dies and the girl/boy who was dancing replaces her as the men lay back wowed by the performance.

After a lot of discussion the group dispersed and came back together the next day. We had decided the day before that each of us should find 2 songs for the next meeting. After showing each other the songs we found, we finally all agreed on a song.


However, I mostly agreed on this song due to compromise. Like the dance elements, to keep my idea in the loop I needed to compromise for the girls otherwise I would end up making a music video with people dancing in water and dust. However, I hope once we show our teachers our treatment they will agree that this song doesn't fit the idea.

first creative meeting.

(in order from left to right, myself, Georgia, Jess and Claudia)

A bit about the group -

Georgia is a very impressive actress who worked hard last year on a thriller in a group of just two and still got nominated in the Hurtwood Media Awards. Jess is also an actress, the two will be able to help direct the overall acting of the cast and be able to find the best actresses for our piece. Claudia is a very hard working person who last year for her thriller got an Award from the BFI (the video can be viewed here). I am very happy with my group and I am very excited to work with them, the only issue that I am worried about is that we are all friends, which may make things more difficult.

Yesterday we where introduced to our groups. In our first meeting we discussed all our ideas and we all agreed on our favourite elements. For any creative medium such as art, music, film etc. it is important for everyone involved to input some key elements to a piece, as any art piece is a reflection of oneself, the way someone views the world is determined by all past experiences therefore making it there own. Therefore this year I am very excited to be such a strong group with three very impressive women.

Our second meeting was our creative meeting. We began eliminating any bad ideas or ideas that would not be possible to create due to logistics or budget. In our creative meeting there was some conflict upon ideas, due to myself being very attached to my Gesaffelstein idea. I did not want to let go of a potentially very deep and though provoking piece. Therefore I made it somewhat difficult for the whole group to be able to decide on one strong idea initially. After a lot of discussion and persuasion. The group members came round to my idea. However, my idea needed to be heavily developed. After long discussion I made a compromise with Claudia to have a dancer within the piece.

So after a long think, I knew the piece couldn’t be just reliant on narrative as this is risky and I would be putting my whole group on the line. Therefore we would need some sort of narrative and performance. So the song would need to change.

redlight_feedback

In this video you will see the feedback from my class and my teacher on my idea pitch for my redlight music video.
Here are the key points made by my teacher and my fellow students:

• it is a known rule that it is difficult to work with kid let alone babies. On top of that the ethical issues with making the babies cry.
• it would be difficult to get enough volunteers to make the club scene actually look like a club or a 90's rave.

my reflection too the feedback:

Redlight's song "9ts" was not one of strongest idea, I thought it would be funner then Jamie T's music video idea that's why I pitched it. I completely agree with all the feedback given, I think if I follow through with this idea I would of stock footage of babies crying however this is an expensive avenue as I would have to multiple videos of babies crying. As I said in the video my work around for lack of people for the 90s rave would be having smoke and a strobe. However my teacher believes this would not work and it would be necessary to have a large group of people. If in doubt we could always just shoot it green screen and just replicate the people we have but in different clothes.

gesaffelstein_feedback

In this video you will see the feedback from my class and my teacher on my idea pitch for my gesaffelstein music video.
Here are the key points made by my teacher and my fellow students:

• it's a unique idea however some students become lost as the story progressed.
• the song is too repetitive and may loose viewers attention.
• it is difficult to create a narrative music video with ought audiences loosing their attention.
• try to implement the idea with other performances and pieces and to not keep it strictly narrative.

my reflection too the feedback:

All of the constructive criticism given above was playing on my mind through ought the creative process of coming up with this idea. However, I believe the complexity of this idea could not be just left to abstract imagery otherwise it would loose its message, therefore this idea would have to be developed into a stronger narrative or dropped. If the gesaffelstein song was used I believe I would have to cut it down, as it is true the music is way too repetitive, for example instead of beats being a regular 8 bars its 16, therefore the progression is gradual and adds to the difficulty of a narrative fulfilling a whole music video. The truth is I am a filmmaker and I would strive in making a narrative piece. However I do think this piece is missing with ought any vocal being present. Therefore to progress with this idea I believe I would need to have a different song in mind. A way of implementing a singer into the piece could be by projecting the artist onto the TV screens rather then cutting to a separate scene for the artist therefore not taking the audience out of the world we have created.

[redlight] idea_3

Redlight is a producer from bristol. His music portray its setting, with a very underground industrial feel. Redlight has a more urban and dark image, however he still is able to access the commercial word with his songs “9ts" and "gold teeth”.

it begins with close ups and medium shots of just born babies crying.

when the music hits there are loads of people dancing in smokey room, with a strobe flicker, all in slow motion just capturing the heads of the ravers.

the lyrics would be displayed through ought the crowd.

between the dancing and the trendy kids, with archive footage it would display the start of consumerism. By showing the purchasing of close. transaction of money (closing cash machines).

when the lyrics hit, it would show trendy people wearing 90s close with a cool backdrop.






the kids crying would be playing throughout.

finally to end the music video a trendy 90s kid would be sitting on a mound of clothes smiling with there arms crossed as the camera dollies away.


refer to this is england 90





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[jamiet] idea_2

Jamie T is an english singer song writer from wimbledon. Therefore his music has a very organic feel, due to it being mostly made up of real instruments rather then synthesis and computer designed sounds. He has a somewhat of a school boy punk image which makes his music somewhat fun and relatable to the niche.

my music video would begin with a teenage boy walking towards the camera singing the lyrics of the song. The whole music video would appear as if filmed in one shot, with no cuts.

Through out the music video the lyrics of the song would be illustrated visually.

For example, a couple could appear in front of him acting out what the lyrics are saying, and then the singer would move onto the next bit action from another set of actors. Through ought the cat walk there would be other members of the band.

At the end of the song the main singer would be given a guitar as all the actors through out the piece come go gether and all come dance. Then all stop and bow as it gets quieter as he drops the guitar and walks forward to the camera to say his last bit then he walks off behind the camera.

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[gesaffelstein] idea_1

Gesaffelstein is a french producer who is most commonly known for his epic scores he creates for films. Due to this fact his music production has a very epic feel to it. He creates music in the genre of techno, creating the sounds of the original industrial roots of techno. Therefore Gesaffelstein has a darker more mysterious image, which my music video idea works in hand with this idea.

my idea would begin with an extreme close up of an old 90's tv, which would begin with vhs looking text of the title of the piece. The channel of the TV changes to music notes scrolling across the screen in a somewhat nostalgic 90's look. The camera would slowly dolly out from the TV revealing a young bear and bold boy strapped to the back of the TV. His eyes are tapped shut. The boy is in a lab with all old men scientist surrounding him experimenting with him.

 One the scientists are sat down pressing different buttons, named "VOICE", "BASS", "DRUMS". Each time a button is pressed the TV displays musical notes. The scientists all smile too them selves.

Suddenly three men in jump suites and mask come in with guns and begin spraying all the scientists with bullets. One white man who appears to have some sort of authority escapes, but looks back at the boy just before he makes it through the doors bullets fly at him but miss.The Robbers slowly and carefully grab the boy and put him on there shoulders. They carefully place him into the back of a van that quickly swerves off.

The next scene has the boy active and the tv turned on, electricity is shooting out in all directions. The boy begins to be heavily experimented on with darker and better music being produced by him. A new scientists stands there happily with old men by his side laughing. Flashing images of the boy being heavily electrocuted to produce more and more music, as the old men get richer and richer.

The boy goes through different levels of testing.

After a while of tests the boy stops movie and the tv turns off. A man in a lab coat goes in on his own and taps the tv. The young boy finally breaks free from his chair and kills the scientist by the power of sound.

This is followed by sequence of the boy running through the woods and men with guns running after him.

He finally stops and falls too his knees. The old white man who initally escaped walks up to him and puts his hand out to the boy. He slowly puts his hand on the boys head. Suddenly the old man and the men with guns get blown away by sine waves. The camera slowly dollies away from the boy kneeling on the floor deflated. With the dead bodies surrounding him.

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