16. Key elements

The Genre of Freakfolk;

• abnormal costume which has a feature of individuality
• not necessarily making sense; the video will have a narrative yet it is not exactly clear why these things are happening
• interesting effects on the shots such as using negatives or colour enhancing
• the mise en scene often plays a big part in Freakfolk videos often containing; a warm lighthearted tone often through colour enhancement in the editing process (this is the folk part) and/or a very abstract abnormal feel, could contain lots of blues, but there will be objects in places or ways they shouldn't be (the freak part). I wish to incorporate both these elements; the warm feel of folk yet also an abstract freakish random set

The Audience want;

• A feature of individuality
• relation between the lyrics and what is happening on screen to link the two
• they want to be surprised, weather it is by the editing narrative or effects
• the characters within my video must be accessible to audience; the audience must be able to relate to them in some way

This is a good example of individuality

What is expected;

• smooth editing which looks professional, must be of a high standard
• close ups of the main artist
• the idea of looking and reflections is often present in music videos.
• close relation between the video and the track

Creative task - Stop Motion

This is a stop motion video I made with the intention to use it in my final piece. I used the lyrics "by your side" and "even when your down and out" from the song and showed them in my video. I like the video that I have made and will defiantly use it yet there are a few errors where peoples shoes can be seen in photos; to solve this I may have to cut some out. This video will be broken up alongside other clips so this is possible.

15. Animation of Shot Ideas

14. Shot ideas and lyrics matching

In my film I have the idea of having four different story lines. Two of which meet at the end which is an example of crosscutting. The four story lines are; a little girl/boy picking flowers, an older girl collecting balloons from places, instruments being played mirroring the sound in the song and a stop motion section.

This is a very rough draft of my shots and my idea's so far.

Beginning Section...



Piano Keys (piano comes in) fading in and out to the song. at different angles


getting out of bed and getting up


Ties shoes



Drum Beating (beat comes in)


lip sync - I'll always be by your side


Middle section...


girl collecting balloons


to lyrics - I'll cook your food


Girl collecting balloons


another girl picking flowers


to lyrics - I'd wear you black eyes


child picking flowers

End Section...


stop motion section - hands opening and closing with different things inside them.


along side lip syncs of buy your side


child and girl both arrive at the beach hold hands at sunset

back to bed. kisses some one on the cheek still in bed

13. Institutions which might produce, distribute and exhibit my video.

After researching the major institutions I decided it was necessary to start researching independent institutions, particularly looking at ones which promote their videos through youtube as my audience does not get their music through methods such as TV because they commonly do not like mainstream music. Searching YouTube is a much more common way for my audience to collect music.

4AD Records is an independent record label who has a much more independent selection of artists such as The National and Tune Yards. These sort of artists are much more similar to my target audience and by having my video on the same channel as them automatically targets my audience with minimal effort.

 They have a youtube channel and use youtube as a source of exhibition. This is more the direction I would go in with my video. If my video was on this youtube channel it would be aiming directly at my target audience. The people who go onto this channel to look at bands they like may come across my video which is a similar genre so it is likely that they would like it.

 

12. Secondary Research

As channel 4 are seen to produce many independent types of TV programmes and slightly more controversial things so subsequently I thought 4music would have a good audience for my video.

There was an article in BBC news discussing how channel 4 has always been quite controversial and doing things it shouldn't. The article discusses the 1993 Brookside Kiss, lesbian kiss which was the first scene of this kind to be shown on British television. It also discusses the one-off Brass Eye special about paedophilia, the allegedly racist bullying of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty and Derren Brown's controversial Russian Roulette stunt.

With this open view on whats shown on television I expected a similar approach to what is shown on 4music; a mixture of mainstream and independent, slightly quirky music. However when I looked on the website I found that the music was much more mainstream than I had thought and with the track for my music video being Freakfolk I didn't think it would be sensible to work with 4music for exhibition of my video as the audience would be far too mainstream.

On the 4music website in the sales section they state that their purpose is to showcase the best in mainstream music for high street addicts and that they feature the latest chart music. Comparing this to my research I do not think this would be the direction to go in when my audience members are clearly not high street addicts and very little Freakfolk ever enters the charts.

The audience i am trying to target 'Craft Kids' do not listen to mainstream music often acquiring their music through word of mouth or through searching youtube videos. Finding new music as to what is suggested on youtube when listening to music they like. They are not the types to watch allot of television, being more creative people they access their music more through the internet. This is why I would not go down the television route when distributing my video.

4AD Records is an independent record label who has a much more independent selection of artists such as The National and Tune Yards. They have a youtube channel and use youtube as a source of exhibition. This is more the direction I would go in with my video.

11. Audience research

To find out what subculture my audience member belongs in I went on the website http://www.findyourtribe.co.uk/ , a website which can calculate a persons subculture by their tastes and interests and did their questionnaire in the mindset of someone who would listen to this sort of music and is interested in this music genre to discover what sort of person my audience member is. For example when asked for what I do on a night out I answered go to a gig and when asked from a list to choose my favourite musician I chose Jack White as the rest where too mainstream and his music was the closest to Freakfolk I could get.

UK Tribes is a website created which has been created due to large amounts of research into youth culture which is why I believe it to be a reliable source of information.

Result.....

You are a Craft Kid! You can’t remember the last time you bought a new piece of clothing – you’d much rather knit for six years than buy a jumper off the peg. It’s so much better for the environment and you like something unique. Hence your love of vintage – tea sets, floral dresses, aprons and matinee idols are your interests. Young fogey style is here again.

After receiving this result i looked deeper into this sub genre to discover more about my audience.

Craft Kids often care alot about the environment and the world around them. They like to make do and make mend; re-using things to make new things. They can often be related to Hippies in this sense. They will make alot of their own clothes and often make an effort to re-cycle. Lots of Craft Kids will also be vegetarians as this ties in with their love for the environment.

Their dress sense is very relaxed but normally has some unique quality to it, often something slightly bizarre. They like to wear things like scarves hats and gloves.

As they enjoy being creative they will not always follow the crowd. Instead of doing things like going to the cinema they might have a picnic or come up with their own ideas rather than just follow the trends. Yet they never go out to be outrageous for the sake of it. They are the way they are because its how they like to be.

In the same way that they don't follow trends they do not follow the more mainstream music. Being creative they like their music to have some element of creativity in it, to have some individual feature (which describes the genre of Freakfolk and confirms my audience research into music videos). Music they may listen to would be bands like MGMT, CocoRosie, the fleet foxes, Moby and more. Many craft kids will play an instrument and write their own music as they love to create.

This is an example of the sort of music they would listen to;

Although I feel my video is available to both genders I feel that due to the presence of a female protagonist and the lighthearted theme and narrative it may appeal more to a female audience.

Alternative music such as freak folk tends to appeal to a younger audience of 30's and under. Due to the nature of my song; It has a strong beat and controversial themes, I believe this will also appeal to younger audiences yet young teens are more commonly into pop culture which is why I set my target age rage at 15-30.

Ideas - Inspirational video's

I really liked this stop motion video. I want to include some stop motion in my video and i thought this video was a good one to look at.

Her Morning Elegance - Oren Lavie

This short film i thought was incredibly well shot and mise en scene is amazing. I cant hope to have the technology to get anywhere close to this in my film but i still find it inspiring.

Nuit Blanche - Arev Manoukian

10. Audience research

To find out about peoples veiws on music and music videos i made some questions which i asked to four different people with different tastes in music; rap, folk, acoustic and R&B. The questions were;


1. What genre of music do you listen to/like the most?
2. What do you like about this type of music?
3. Do you believe music videos make a difference when selling a song? would you watch what you've heard is a good music video if you didn't like the song?
4. What features in a music video would put you off?
5. What features of a music video do you think would attract you to it?


From my research I found out these things;


Why do people listen to the music that they do?
One of the answers that came up alot for question two was the lyrics of a song. People like songs which have meaning and make them think. The emotions which are portrayed in songs are often felt in the listener and this sort of emotional power and depth is important the listener as it gives the song purpose.


An example of a song which has thought provoking lyrics would be Bob Dylan's the Times They are a-Changin'. This song if famous for its strong views and cleverly crafted lyrics.


"Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin"


An example of bad lyrics would be the song Life by Des-ree. This song contains the all time worst lyrics according to a listener poll held by BBC 6 music.


"I'm afraid of the dark,
'specially when I'm in a park
And there's no-one else around,
Ooh, I get the shivers
I don't want to see a ghost,
It's a sight that I fear most
I'd rather have a piece of toast
And watch the evening news"


Do music videos make a difference when selling a song?
For question three everyone answered that the video does make a difference to the selling of a song and the majority said that they would watch a good music video if they did not like the song. This shows that music videos play a big part in the selling of a song however; the liking of a music video does very much come down to taste. This is why different genres of music have different styles of music videos.

As you can see the top and the bottom rows are two different videos from two different genres. The top in John Lee Hooker's video for One Bourbon, Onse Scotch, One Beer which is in the genre of Blues. The bottom is the video for Kanye West's song All of the Lights. The videos have been crafted for their genres audience by knowing what the audience likes due to its genre.


With the constant advance in technology music videos become more accessible than just watching on TV. They can not be downloaded onto phones, ipods, ipads and many more devices. This makes music videos in today's world much more important as they are available in a more portable fashion making the video just as an important feature as the song itself in many respects.


What puts people off music videos?
People do not watch music videos which have been badly made. With the rate of technology today there is now an assumption that music videos must all be up to scratch. They must be filmed well and edited well. People do not like videos which are uninteresting; videos which are simplistic with no feature of individuality. Without an interesting narrative or element of originality (like the OK Go video below) there is no reason for a viewer to sit and watch.


What attracts people to music videos?
Generally iIgot the same answer for question five; people like a music video which has an interesting original idea or some feature of individuality. The point of music videos it to be watched and to entertain and people are entertained by something new which they haven't seen before. People now haw seen allot of music videos in their lives so many of the ideas behind music videos are unoriginal which is why people enjoy watching something different as it is new and exiting.
For example OK Go's video for This Too Shall Pass;

This is an interview which I did for the questions with a member of my class which I recorded.

9. Andrew Goodwin music video theory

Andrew Goodwin on Prezi