Storyboard

The story board process took some time to complete due to freqent changes in the initial idea. This was caused by minor changes in the initial ideas as well as clasehes with shooting schedules. Many times when certain props were required (such as the puppets and mini scales sets) they were unavailable. This led me to beleive that they would be unavailable for filming, so the main concept was changed and another storyboard and concept was made.

Pre-Production Paperwork

After the initial idea was complete and written down, a call sheet and risk assesment had to be made. The call sheet required a brief outline of what is to be filmed (storyline) and what elements are required to complete the filming such as characters, props, location, and actors. this will help outline what is to be acheived during the filming process and what will be required to do it. In addition to this a risk assessment form must be filled in to explain which hazzards may be ecountered during filming and how hazardous they will be and what precautions will be taken to avoid them. The final piece is a shooting schedule which will simply explain what the time and dates are for filming and where they will be filmed, as well as a brief description of what will be filmed. Once this is complete, a storyboard and animatic can be started.

Image, Vehicle and Power

Today we analysed how a musical artist is perceived by his or her audience by the star image and how it is conveyed as a vehicle. This includes studying how the image is constructed due to how the artsist choose to represent themselves. This can be from the clothing they were to the lyrics conveyed in the music video. It can also be from the 'fans' shown in the video, whether they be actors or actual fans shown in a live performance (a common trait for artists in the 70's and 80's since the concept of a narrative and structure of the music video trend wasn't common among the music scene). The star vehicle also enables the artist to change from one type of image to another, such as trend seting (Madonna) and going solo (Justin Timberlake).












Above: Madonna in the music video for 'Material Girl' 1985. The video features Madonna in a Maryln Monroe like posture and uses bright colours to show her established look. The video was directed by Mary Lambert.

Below: The 'Frozen' 1998 music video features a complete change of contrast in image, showing a change in colours and style both in terms of music and artistic progression. The video was directed by Chris Cunningham.












Another element is the start power, which takes several forms such as economic (financial earnings) and artsistic power (creative control over both the music and the image). There is also the element of ideological power, which is the influence the artist has over it's audience. They may use this to influence the idea of fashion (rappers promoting gold chains) and opnions/attitude (Prince promoting the influence of God and Jesus in his music).

Pre Production

Started pre-production paperwork on creating the music video production. I have sevaral rough ideas and wish to flesh out certain ones and choose which will be the most suitable to film film in terms of production (ie; filming dates, budget restriction, software at hand, etc). After developing at least one of the ideas, I began a treatment including what the initial concept will be (performance or narrative based) and other elements (chracters, story, format, etc).

Music Videos

For my music video presentation I have chosen to use 'Stronger' by Kanye West and '12:51' by The Strokes as my prime examples since they both contain the three main elements most commonly used in music videos that I would like to highlight. These are: Intertextuality, perfermance and concept.

Kanye West - 'Stronger'

The video is directed by Hype Williams and it features cameos by Daft Punk and Cassie. The track features a sample from the Daft Punk track 'Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger' (hence the cameo roles) and is a combination of a concept and performance based video. The video features a heavy use of intertextuality since it uses a scene by scene reenactment of the anime 'Akira' (as shown below).








Above: The cinematography in the video is made to remainese the Neo-Tokyo look of the anime.








Above: The video features a many shot by shot reenactments of the anime.

The Strokes - '12:51'
As with all of their previous music videos, '12:51' is directed by Roman Coppola and continues with their trend of having an 'anti-cool' image. The track uses a distinct keyboard-like sounds produced by a guitar and has been decribed as having a 'retro' feel to it. The video was inspired by the futuristic look of the 1980s film Tron and the influence features heavily, in terms of intertextuality, in the video (as shown below).

Left: A shot of the the lead singer of The Strokes from the '12:51' video.

Right: A shot from the 1982 movie 'Tron'.