Storyboards v Animatics

Storyboards are a series of frames with drawings and words from a script. After the storyboard, the next step is producing an animatic. Animatics are animated storyboards.

Purpose = They are used for various purposes.
Animatics are used every day in the advertising industry to test commercials. They're used to preview scenes of live-action films before they are shot. Before full-up production, this means the final level.

History = Up until just a few years ago, animatics were produced by filming or videotaping storyboards. Over the last ten years, animatic production has become much more sophisticated. Animatics are now produced with the aid of computer animation.

For our preliminary task we used a storyboard sheet to draft out our ideas, but on the filming day we realised that some shots did not fit, some didn’t look right etc. So we learnt that for our actual music video piece we needed to use a animatic as well as a storyboard to give us a good idea of the look of the scenes as well as ensuring we are happy with the rough look of our music video.

By Evette Anderson-Sampah

Free web preparation

I have now made the basic layout of the sites, I’ve added the layout design and the pages I’m going to using on there. Next I need to put on a autobiography for out solo singer, as every musician needs to have that on their site, for the benefit of the fans who want to get the know their artist and possible business related people who might want to make deals with a artist they like the sound of.

Here are the things I think its import to add to an biography:

• Artists full name not just including the ‘stage name’

This allows the fans to feel more personal towards the artist, when you first meet someone you find out their name and its similar here, it’s as if it’s the beginning of a relationship with the fan and the artist.

• Hometown

Again fans from the same hometown would feel glad that someone from where they are became successful. Also it could give answers to people who wonder where her accent is from etc. Or where you might see her performing next.

• Rise to fame

This tells the audience how the artist came to be where she is now. And for people who know nothing about her and assume she’s just a random one hit wonder this is in some ways a C.V to show her experience.

• Where her talent to noticed/discovered

• Education

• Label how she met them.

• Success

• Where they are now.

Here is the completed unedited biography:

Ellena Witney Rose at the age of Nine, moved from her hometown in Switzerland to Wales with her mother, where she met her fellow band and manager Mark Jenkins who was her former drama teacher.
She never had professional vocal lessons but was praised on her natural sounding voice having a five-octave vocal range. She was frequently asked to participate in talent shows she never had to audition for. At the age of twelve while still in school, she tried out for a local punk band called Messy Black where she met her now husband Matt Bleu. Matt bleu being the front man for the band made collaborations with Ellena which was a success on her schools radio station regularly reaching number one each week.
Ellena was discovered in 2003 by managers Dave Steinbrink and Richard Williams who later signed the fourteen-year-old to a production deal, which later Ellena’s mother pulled her out of because of accusations of Steinbrink and Williams illegally taking full responsibly of her financial success.
At the age of sixteen she attended Brit School for two years. After leaving Brit school with high grades she took a one year singing course at Tech Music School.
She later moved to London and enrolled on a degree in music at University College London, transferring in her second year of studies to Loughborough University, however later she dropped out. She stated that the reason she didn’t carry on her education was because she “Had no passion to be in university learning about music, I wanted to do music, I felt like I was wasting my time because I could already sing and I learnt that myself.”
Now twenty two Ellena moved in with Matt Bleu and began going to many auditions including the West End musical, The Lion King and BBC’s unsigned festival. She rose to fame after reaching number two on the BBC Sound of 2010 poll list, coming second to Ellie Goulding.

By Evette Anderson-Sampah

Myspace preparation

In order to make our artist believe able we have decided to make her a MySpace, as MySpace is populated everyday with many musicians both sighed and unsigned artists we believe this social network would be where this type of artist would advertise her music. One of the main reasons we decided to make a MySpace because the audience targeted for this site is between the ages from 15-20 which is also the target audience for ‘Ellena Rose’ genre of music.

As a group we debated whether to make a facebook combined with a ‘free’ web, because in the process of making the MySpace I found that it was quite difficult with the introduction of the new MySpace layout 0.2, and because I’m more used to the html based layout before that. Also when adding the song to the MySpace I didn’t realise about the disclaimer of not being allowed to use copyrighted stuff and legally I didn’t own the song, so I tried 2-3 times to add the song and I finally got a timed ban on the account. So after that I thought back to making the facebook and a ‘free’ web and just linking them up together because I believe you can add more things to ‘free’ web as u have more freedom to add what you want on there, Also I’m quite experience with using html codes and I feel it’s more personal and unique and html codes can be used in any design way you want which makes it totally different to anyone else’s site.

Also the population of MySpace is rapidly decreasing with the introduction of facebook and twitter, and there is a chance that Myspace would be shut down because of this. That’s one of the prime reasons Myspace decided to make a newer layout to attract all the users who have abandoned myspace for another social site.

Looking through all the sites claiming that you can make a free professional looking website, I settled on using www.webs.com because I looked at existing sites made and I liked the look of it, also I know many people my age who have a site they linked to their facebook and it looks very professional also I like ccs codes because I like working with them rather than having to choose from bland ready made layouts.

By Evette Anderson-Sampah

Digipak research

While Mariam, Myung and Evette carried on editing the music video, I started on making the digipak. At first I found this to be a slight challenge as I had never owned an album which was a digipak. So in order to create the digipak I had to do some research into existing ones.

Digipaks
I like this digipak as it has the pictures and band information and toour dates. This is whyt most people pay more digipaks


I also looked at album covers by different artists like Norah Jones and Kate Melua.

Norah Jones- Come Away with Me

I used this Norah Jones album cover as inspiration for our cover. I liked the simplicity of it. Most album covers have elaborate artwork and extravagant photoshoots. To have a simple close up of the singers face gives the potential buyer an insight to what kind of musician she is. Norah Jones is a smooth jazz and blues singer, having a blue background is a literal way of showing her genre.






Mika- Life in Cartoon Motion

This a completely different ablum cover. This is cover is album artwork that only features a small picture of the artist. Like most covers the artwork reflects the genre of music. Mika's is glam rock and pop. An album cover should not only reflect the genre of music, but the artist themself. The bright colours reflect Mika's happy-go-lucky nature and hyperactive personality.







Roshi Theva

Auidence feedback

During our Media Studies lesson we were asked to evaluate our classmates music videos, making notes and telling them ways to improve and things that they are doing well. Four different groups watched our music video 'Raindrops' and they made notes for us also.

When my group and I read through the feedback, we could see that we had received mixed views of positive and negative feedback. We were told that our mise-en-scene was very interesting in our music video as the house that we used works well with our music and genre. We were also told that the costume our artist is wearing matches her look and fits the part perfectly. Although our video was enjoyed by many people, we were told that some of the editing scenes were a bit jumpy, noticeable and that we needed to sync the visuals with the music more effectively, as some scenes were out of sync. Another negative comment was that our artist did not seem very confidant which makes her less believable as the singer because she did not have alot of passion whilst singing in some of the scenes .

Thankfully, we were given an extra week to make improvements on our final product. As a group we read through all the comments and listened thoroughly, insuring that we continued to edit, making changes at every scene that was required to be improved.

Mariam Nikpour

I produced a questionnaire before we began creating our music video and asked 10 people to fill it in, below is an example of one of them. The questionnaires were very useful for us as we were able to have an insight of a mixture of different people’s opinions. We listened to the feedback we were given and we put it into practise. For example, 9 out of 10 people we questioned said that they would prefer to see performance over narrative in our music video, so we took this into account and we did not include too much of a story line, we left our audience guessing and we did not reveal what the song is about, however it was not confusing to watch.

As a group we were considering whether to include an instrumental band in our music video or not, we decided not to bring in any other characters other than Eleanor Rose (the singer) because although there are many different instruments being played such as the piano drums and keyboard, we felt that this style of music would not suit a band and the female actress should perform solo. Furthermore, 8 out of 10 people who filled in our questionnaire said that we should not include a band to our music video as it may look out of place and awkward for the audience.


Audience Questionnaire

1. When you hear the song ‘Raindrops’ what genre would you associate it with?
Female artist, romance.

2. Would you expect to see a band/group in the music video for this song?
No.

3. What comes to your mind when you hear this song?
Female artist singing about love, depression, heart ache.

4. What makes you watch a music video interesting to you?
When the artist keeps the audience engaged by looking at the camera whilst singing and performing. Also a good story line to fit the music.

5. Do you think we should include more conceptual, narrative or performance?
Performance.

6. Do you like the idea of using shaky camera work, with quick zooms in and out, at the performance parts of the video?
Not always.

7. Do you think fast pace filming will suit our music video?
Yes when appropriate.

8. Where do you watch music videos?
Internet and television.

9. What genre of music do you like?
Indie and Hip-hop.

10. Are you male or female?
Female.

Mariam Nikpour.

Some videos looked at for raindrops video

Music Video Resource Evaluation

Before we started filming the raindrops video, we had to find some videos

which could be looked at to spark our ideas. Which we could use as a source

of reference now and then too.

Whilst everyone had a different idea of videos to look at, i am going to evaluate a few

videos i was inspired by to help me and my team put together our storyboard and music video.

1. Taeyang (Artist)- Ill be there (Song)

These are different shots from the music video.

This particular shot inspired us to use cobwebs as part of our mise en scene.

As soon as we put together our ideas for the raindrops song, i.e the concept, genre

i immediately thought of this particular music video. Though the artist is from a different cultural background, i thought that the concept would be exactly what we wanted. That someway making a connection between 'raindrops' and 'Ill be there' would work.

There are alot of iconography in Ill be there, suggesting different

meaning to the items used. For example the rose, suggesting something quite beautiful but dangerous. So instead of a traditional red rose, we thought in the video having a black rose would suggest a more dark, dangerous and mysterious idea to the audience. Coming back to the idea that we wanted the audience to be free in interpreting they're own idea of the ending of the video (therefore being mysterious). Whilst the rose represents the artist's name and personality as 'the rose' itself.

Whilst using the same idea of the black rose, alot of shots we used have also been inspired from this video. Such as the close up of our artist 'Ellena Rose's' face where she is lying down on the bed, is one similar of the female actress in 'Ill be there'. Finally the part where the artist falls to the ground, is a part inspired by this video.

Click here to watch the music video

2. Bruno Mars- Just the way you are (Making of video)

This particular clip, sparked my idea that having 'fade to blacks' repeatedly to go with the beat

of music at the start of the music video would go well with the piano keys in the song raindrops, as done in bruno mars'just the way you are'. It would add some dramatic effect to it too.

Click here to watch the music video

3. Mariah Carey- We belong together

This is a very nice establishing shot, at the start of this music video.

Looking at this video, I got alot of ideas we could also use in our own video. The way most of

the footage from the music video is revealing the house and showing a connection between the solo artist and the house (i.e. why she is there, where it is.) Which me and my team attempted to do in our own music video.

Even the colours in the shots from the mise en scene which are mostly black and white, green can also are very similar in our own video. I thought that

these colours show: black- darkness and secretive, mysterious. white- pure, innocence. green- neutral. Putting all these colours together can show some form of confusion and depth for the audience to think about.

Also the part where Mariah carey is sitting down and singing part of the lyrics, with the wind blowing on her hair, is another key concept which contributes to our own video.

Click here to watch the music video

4. Neyo- Mad

This music video uses alot of iconography and detail such as small skeleton figures (meaning death) to guide the audience through the video, and explain what is going on. Also using black and white only, to show that the artist in the video has actually died in the scenario. I think the use of black and white, also shows some element of sadness to the audience watching the video whilst the colours do co-ordinate to the colours of the keys on the piano.

This music video also helped me and my team to pick out the rose and cobwebs to add more meaning to our own music video.

Click here to watch the music video

Other media- Atonement (Working Title Movie).

The opening establishing shot of the british traditional house in atonement was

something which inspired me to film the footage used for the opening scene of 'raindrops'.

Where i thought it would be nice using the doll house to be compared the real house. So by doing this, the audience get a sense of idea that the artist is lost in her own fantasy. Whilst it establishes the location beautifully.

First of all it was just something done as part of experimentation, whilst i had some spare time

whilst Evette were helping out getting Mariam ready with Make up and other, and Roshi was setting up the lighting and second sony HD camera ready. However, whilst editing we found it to come in very nicely as part of the opening sequence.

This is the real house.

This is the doll house in atonement.

- Myung Kwon