Ollie Allgrove presentation

Ollie Allgrove, who has a background in feature films, music videos and commercials, visited our school giving us advice on our music videos.

He currently works for the independent studio, Passion Pictures, which specialises in high-end animation and commercials; Passion Pictures work has been multi award winning, a key example being the animated Meerkat campaign for Comparethemarket.com. Ollie has worked on feature films, TV commercials and even Nature Documentaries; he explained that at the heart of everything in the industry is story telling.

Ollie went to explain aspects of film production, explaining that talent management represents directors, producers and even VFX artists. The directors usually communicate ideas to both the talent and crew.

He told us that people commonly misunderstand the purpose of a music video; an artists music video provides a unique visual voice and a creative point of view, moreover the number of views are a way of measuring success. Also the number of views may translate into profit if products placement has been used in the video,

Ollie also old us the roles of the people surrounding the artist being firstly the record label, who commissions the videos, the management, who protects the artist, and the artist themselves who collaborates creative ideas with the director.

The artist is ultimately seeking hits with the video, they can achieve this through noise, impacts and typically controversy.

Ollie continued to explain the timeline of a music video.

1.     The brief

2.     The treatment

The treatment very briefly documents the ideas throughout the video, this is vital as it is difficult to gauge an audiences attention for 3 minutes. It could also include storyboards. It would discuss the look and the wardrobe and the reasoning behind it. This is where the director communicates with the crew and wardrobe etc.

3.     The shoot

On the day everyone would know his or her role due to the intensive planning. He explained that shooting music videos is ideal for exploring creative idea.

4.     The edit

Ollie stated that it is important to maximise time on shoot as editing holds a specific value and ideas can considerably more expensive in post production.

He continued to tell us about two music videos he had created in the past with Goldfrapp and Joe Lean. The Goldfrapp music video was particularly unusual as his studio was approached to created a 40 minute narrative that was made up of the individual music videos of songs from the album. The result end up being very successful as it was released to 300 cinemas as a short film further promoting the music. Also, his video with Joe Lean was a one day shoot with a small budget of only £2500 hence they could only afford one special moment which was one of the members jumping off the roof of a hospital wing with an umberella. The video was made with only a small digital canon camera, edited on a laptop and used a small amount of after effects. Here is the result:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x33tzx_joe-lean-and-the-jing-jang-jong-luc_news

Audience profile of target audience

Music and other institutions are greatly benefited by knowing the profile of their projected audience; hence detailed accounts are built to see how they’re constructed.

The JICNARS scale is the most common form of dividing an audience demographically ie. via age, sex, race etc. Our audience fits in the D and E segments, which encompass people involved in semi and unskilled manual work and those reliant on subsistence income. Our target audience is a demographic aged from 15 to 25 due to the youthful connotations of the feeling of freedom and also the rebellious use of alcohol. Those in C2, skilled manual work, may also enjoy the alternative style of music so could too be incorporated in the target audience.

Segmenting an audience can also be achieved psychographically, otherwise known as lifestyle profiling. This is the study of personality, values, opinions, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles; since this area of research focuses on interests, attitudes, and opinions used to predict consumption. VALS, the Valuing Attitudes and Lifestyles classification system is the best-known psychographic profiling system. ‘Experiencers’ best fit our concept, as ‘Experiencers’ seek rebellion and risky experiences, fitting to our concept of seeking freedom and excitement in the woods escaping from regular society. Additionally the Teenage VALS, ‘Rebels’, ‘Innovators’ and ‘Drop outs’, also fit our concepts ideology, ‘Rebels’ are particularly well suited as they are defined by wanting to remake the world in their own image; this is ideal for our model as it is based around a group of young people who do not fit in with society hence resort to creating their own sub community in the natural world.

This projected target audience would like our new artist, as the songs lyrics are ‘You're pushing me away from you’, we’re interpreting this as the consumerism focused society isolating young people and hence they are drawn to create a subculture, constructing a very relatable concept. Having the visual contrast of rural and urban imagery this message would be clear to multiple young people who feel lost in the world and would identify with the desire of freedom. Moreover the indie aesthetic emulated in the costume and setting would appeal those demographics who like this current youthful image.

Moodboards

Using Pinterest, I put some pictures together to help inspire us.

The Girl // Costume

 The Band // Costume

The Woods // Set

The chosen song

After discussion, we've decided that our song is ... 'Away Frm U' by Oberhofer

The song encapsulates the atmospheric idea we had for the music video and was the best compromise for all of our song ideas. Also, the song will be far better suited to the band element of the video than 'Electric Feel' which was more electronic.

Projections, locations and the band

Here are my group members ideas for the projections, locations and the band.

Projections by Sasha

Location by India

The band by Phoebe

Ideas for the narrative

Being responsible for the narrative the main aspects for me to consider were:

1) WHAT the ethereal figures were doing in London
and
2) HOW they linked to our idea

3) WHAT the boys were doing in the woods

Ethereal figures
I liked the idea of the girl/girls travelling or moving in the city.
Some ideas include:

-Sitting in a cab (film from the outside- see the reflections of the city)
-Walking along Southbank, close up of face- hair moving in wind
-Wide shot cycling (park to road?)
-Sitting in tube
-Wide shot of walking past concrete building

Boys in the Woods
Some ideas:

-Starting a fire/sitting by a fire
-Target practise with the hanging objects
-Sharpening sticks
-Stick fights
-Drinking/smoking
-Watching figures on the projections
-Hanging things on the trees
-Climbing trees
-Throwing things at the tents
-Sat combing hair 

Visualising the concept

Whilst considering our ideas I quickly sketched a possible set for our concept:

I liked the idea of choosing a section of woods which was on a slope so the projections could cover sheets on a larger scale.

I included in the drawing an old armchair alluding to how the campsite was there for quite sometime and also hanging objects and sheets from the trees.

Here are some more images of the tents we were inspired by:

Whats next?

Looking back to our feedback we identified the four key elements that we need to individually develop to push our idea for the three week deadline. These are:

•   Narrative

•   Projections

•   Locations

•   Band

I am responsible for the ideas surrounding the narrative.

Whilst our group had some time together we brainstormed developments for our idea.

Projections; we still wanted to incorporate the urban element. We thought to pre film a winged ethereal figures in London as well as her silhouette dancing in the studio to link the two ideas.



Set; Handprints on trees, Teddy bears stuck into trees with daggers, Teddy bears and dolls hanging from the washing line with bulls eyes on them, The boys shooting with boy and arrows, Cardboard swords.


Progressing with ideas

Earlier today, we pitched our second idea being the 'Down by the River'.

We were commended on the well structured narrative of the idea and how we linked the performance element and the second element together through the couples relationship. Though we were told that our main idea was stronger, this obviously made sense as we had dedicated far more time into developing that idea and in our eyes we were doing it from day one; his feedback made the decision to proceed with the main idea obvious.

What now?

Following this we highlighted areas of concern and development.

Firstly we need to find a new song.

The three songs which were immediately suggested by the group were 'purple yellow red blue' by Portugal the man, 'give me a try' by The Wombats and also 'away frm u' by oberhofer.

'purple yellow red blue' by Portugal the man

'give me a try' by The Wombats

'away frm u' by oberhofer

Collectively as a group we liked 'away from u' the most. I really liked the tinkering sound in the back ground as it reminded me of wind chimes and childish toys linking to our original 'lost boys' theme.

Later I found the song 'The Bay' by Metromony which I think could suit the song quite well.

'The Bay' by Metromony

The song has a unique vibe which I think would fit the abstract video well.

Feedback from 'Electric Feel' pitch

In our lesson today, we pitched our main idea being ‘Electric Feel’ to Luke, who is the creative director of film, discussing the practicality of our concept. After showing him the original video, little to our knowledge, he said that a group before us had used the song, which was fine but just a little irritating for us, so we are now considering a new song to use.

Overall he liked aspects of our idea though there where quite a few problem areas. A main issue was the urban street element of the video, as firstly we would not have permission to use a street and even if we did we wouldn’t be able to break things and the whole abstract costume/weird reaction from the public could just look comical.

He advised us to take a new direction of shooting only in the woods but project the performance element onto an array of hanging sheets and smoke to make a visual spectacle, drawing from our original idea of tents in the forest and projections in the studio. Though for this is we would need would need projectors and generators etc which hopefully the school would provide, however there was a similar idea of projecting onto trees last year and they only had one projector. To start the video he said to have a time lapse of the scene displaying the light to dark aspect so the audience can gauge the location. The woods outside Peaslake would b well suited for this idea as the house is very near by. He advised us to avoid the Peter Pan projection, as this could look tacky but instead project a cityscape to incorporate the urban element and have city views on a time lapse. Also, we could shoot earlier in the day in the studio and shoot 3 different sizes shots of a band and perhaps other scenes; he also stated that we could use the studio as a back up in case the woodland aspect didn’t work. We would also need some human action in the forest to make the scene more interesting.

 He had the idea of directing a fan at the sheets to make the scene more nonrepresentational and hanging abstract items from trees; I really liked this idea of a dystopian scene. Also. He said that the lighting was important, as we would want to light the scene enough to gather the spectacle but still have it dark enough for the projection to be effective, he also advised to using soft red lights.

The most important part for us to bear in mind is the narrative; he said that we should look at concepts like the development of a campsite and the people in it, before and after a festival.

AMPM- 'Electric feel' music video pitch

(Link to mock website: http://indiaraniolo.wix.com/ampm)
The website includes the artwork we had previously created alongside incorporating exciting colourful pages in conjunction to their youthful indie music engaging their fans. Also, we included an 'events' and 'music' page.

Thought process:
The music video which we have created well establishes the artist, as the video depicts young people lost in regular society who seek an outlet of excitement and creativity in nature, clearly depicting an organic artist.

The video may relate to teenagers who enjoy the interesting aesthetic we have created or those who are too in a confusing fase in their lives. The idea reminds me of the play 'Jerusalem' where young people separate themselves with regular society and retreat to the 'green space' to experiment with drugs, alcohol, sexuality etc which then enables them to grow up and return to society. Effectively the artists music does the same as the green space, it grants young people with an outlet from normality.

(a scene from Jerusalem)

The video is inspired by the lost boys from peter pan and the Lord of the flies.

Our main focus of the music video should the costumes of the characters, our idea was to put the boys in grungy, indie atire, so dressed in fur coats, baggy shirts, feathered headdresses, dark make up as a group we where thinking of visiting charity shops.

The clothes reflect how isolated the young boys are from regular society, and this contrast will be highlighted as they walk through the urban streets where 'regular' people would be distracted by their look and disrespectful behaviour.

Milky Chance- 'Down by the River' music video pitch

The idea which we have constructed would launch the artist mainly due to the fact that the video is based around a young couple who have grown up together appealing to a younger audience of around 15 to 25. Also, the video is very simplistic adhering to the folk organic music. Additionally, although the video is inspired by childhood, the concept behind the video is very unique, so I think a wider and older audience would find the video aesthetically engaging and be able to understand the metaphorical message of deteriorating relationships.