Cast

Here are the characters in our music video; Harry will be playing the young teenager tormented by his inner battle with puppet.

Name: Harry Painter
Gender: Male
Age: 16
Role: Skitsophrenic teenagers battling his inner "demons" which takes form through the puppet. He is not in control of his own life and the line between reality and nightmare begins to overlap.

Costume: Indie style, hoody needed

Name: Charlie the puppet (skilfully won off ebay!)

Role: the puppet must torment Harry our main character. His presence in subtle and ominous as he represents a tormented state of mind.

Problems...

This process was never going to be perfectly smooth and ours has been far from! Due to "adverse weather conditions" our timetable was impossible to stick too as we could not get to our locations. However we still had deadlines to meet so we compromised: we extended our filming schedule into the Christmas holidays, and changed our location from Bromley to Dartford which made it much more accessible for us and actually worked our looking much better on film. We also had to change our original actor as he was unavailable and as a group we decided to use Megan's brother Harry as he was more reliable, had the right look and it also meant Megan could film extra parts at home if necessary. So despite all of this we have managed to work around our problems and will hopefully make our deadlines!

Filming

We have now begun our filming. This is our rough timetable of where and when we plan to film;

Risk assessment

Locations

Once we had finished our storyboard we started thinking about the best locations to film in order to achieve the look we had imagined. We needed a white room to portray his nightmare/torment and the feeling of being trapped indside his own head. We chose to film in my garage as it was white and had the rough, rustic look we wanted:

(image)

We also needed an alleyway and streets to show his life outside the nightmare but how he never really escapes the torment of the puppet. We chose an alleyway next to my house as it had the right look and was local so it could easily fit into our timetable and make it accessible.

(image)

Animatic

Once we completed our story board we used Final Cut to edit the images alongside our music track so that we had a rough idea of what our video was going to look like. Here is the plan for our video:

Untitled from Megan Painter on Vimeo.

Storyboard

Before we went out to film our video we had to have a clear idea of exactly what we were going to film in order to be able to manage our time and resources efficiently and create an animatic.

Here are the completed images for our storyboard;

Copyright Permission

"Copyright is a set of exclusive rights granted by the law of a jurisdiction to the author or creator of an original work, including the right to copy, distribute and adapt the work." (wikipedia)

In order to use our song we had to ask permission from the record company in order to abide by the copyright laws. We wrote the following letter to Island records and emailed it to them via their website;

Dear Copyright Holder,

I am an A level student and I am writing to request your permission to use one track by the artist; The Killers, entitled ‘Shadow play’ (Joy Division cover). The track 'Shadow Play' is the second track in The Killers' album; 'Sawdust'

With your permission, this track would be used in my current A-level Media Studies project, which involves creating a music video for a popular music track, as well as producing an album and a magazine advert for the artist.

If I received your permission, this track would ONLY be used in an educational context and be viewed by my media class, my teacher and the OCR exam board moderator. It would NOT be released to a large audience or uploaded to any public video websites.

The artist and your company would of course be fully recognized throughout pre-production and the final video itself. A copyright notice, with wording supplied by you can be included in the records of the project. If this is required, please send full details.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

We wrote the letter in Microsoft word;

And then sent it via Island Record's website;

November Update

Busy working on story board...

Mood Board

Once we had studied our song and the lyrics we began to brainstorm ideas about how it made us feel and what it made us see and imagine. From this we created a moodboard;

The Killers

The Killers are an American rock band from Las Vegas, Nevada that formed in 2001.

Initially, The Killers played at small clubs in Las Vegas, Nevada, where they often played at drag shows. They began to send demo tapes to major record labels in the US, all the record labels turned them down but the band caught the eye of Alex Gilbert, a British representative for Warner Bros. Though Warner did not like the band, Gilbert took the demo back with him, showing it to friend Ben Durling, who worked at UK indie label Lizard King Records. The Killers signed with the British label in July 2003.

The Killers have had huge success, the band has sold over 5 million albums in the United States, over 4.5 million albums in the United Kingdom and over 15 million worldwide. However, despite their success they have been involved in some controversy including disputes with bands, most notably; The Bravery and Fall Out Boy.

The Killers - Shadowplay

After listening to many songs we finally decided on The Killers Shadowplay; We liked the mood and pace of song which had a large scope for use of effective editing and cuts. The main lyrics evoked the feelings of loss, loneliness, confusion and regret that we wanted to achieve through our narrative video;

To the centre of the city where all roads meet, waiting for you

To the depths of the ocean where all hopes sank, searching for you

Moving through the silence without motion, waiting for you

In a room with a window in the corner I found truth

We listened to the track and analysed the lyrics as to what they made us think or feel

We then continued to further research our band and brainstorm story line ideas...

Indie Rock Music Video Conventions

After watching many conventions as a group we were able to identify the main conventions in videos of bands such as The Killers, Maccabees etc. Some of the things we found were;

• Often in Black and White
• Band is shown and promoted throughout
• Use of extreme close-ups are very common
• Dark, dreary locations used - makes it more realistic
• Special effects are used at some point in the video
• Performance shots of the band
• Illusion of watching or being watched is often used to some extent

Target Audience

According to UK Tribes (youth research) Youth can be categorized into personality types according to their, hobbies, music etc. These categories include Trendies, Townies, Emos etc.

After carrying out some research on this site we believe our target audience fits best into INDIE SCENESTERS, this group listen to bands in the same Indie Rock genre as our chosen band The Killers.

Some basic facts about our target audience;

• Age 15-25
• Trendy - up to date with both music and fashion trends
• Music is a big part of their lives!

Initial Ideas

Ideas -

As a group we decided on INDIE ROCK as our genre of music. We chose this style of music and video as it is a very broad genre opening lots of opportunities and choices for us to play around with.

We began looking at bands such as; click on the bands to hear our top 6 songs for our video

The Foals The Klaxons Plan B

Maccabees The XX The Killers

We listened to many of their songs and decided to chose a song that inspired the best idea, which came ultimately from the music's atmosphere and mood and also the lyrics.

Some of the main themes that came out of these songs were;

Love Loneliness Loss

Split personalities Fate

We then continued to brainstorm and play around with these themes, searching for an effective and a slightly controversial story to base our video around...

Mr Brightside Music Video Analysis

The Killers - Mr Brightside

In the Opening shot (0.02) the band is centralised in frame; this immediately establishes their importance and fulfills the video's main purpose in promoting them.

The next shot is an establishing shot is of a burlesque show which is suggested through the iconography used in the mise en scene. Mise en scene, extravagant, theatrical costumes and hair and make-up which are of the same genre, and therefore, suggest some inter-textuality with Moulin Rouge.

The close up shot of Izabella Miko (actress who features in this video) with her white face and hair may be a symbol of her innocence, purity and beauty. The spotlight lighting on her face, illuminates her showing us she is of importance to whomever’s eyes we are seeing through, which ultimately could be any male's admiring her beauty.

This is then followed by mid/close up of Eric Roberts in his throne like chair, centralised in frame to show his dominance/importance in the video. He is holding an apple and by this point we have been introduced to all the main characters of the video.

Some of the longest shots are focused on the band which once again fulfils a music videos purpose of promoting the band.

0.21 – Eric throws the apple to Izabella who catches and he then points to another man for her to take. The apple in greek mythology symbolises an acceptance of marriage however here it is more of a sexual intimacy rather than a proposal. The fact that Eric has the power to tell Izabella what to do shows he has high dominance and power.

0.24 – the shots of the lead singer then show close-ups of his eyes no longer at the camera but seem to be constantly on Izabella showing his growing infatuation with her. The viewer then begins to get a sense of a love triangle forming as we get consecutive shots of Izabella, followed by Eric followed by the Brandon (the lead singer).

“now they’re going to bed” – as we see Izabella pulling a man away with her, this relationship between the lyrics and visuals helps viewers understand and follow the story.

“he takes off her dress now” – we see a sequence of short fragmented shots of the woman and men becoming intimate, between shots of Brandon’s face and a close up as he turns away singing “now, let me go” showing he can’t bear to watch it anymore; it’s too painful for him to see her with other men because of his feelings for her.

The repeated sequence we then see of Eric throwing the apple to Izabella and her leaving with a man of Eric’s choice shows the repetitiveness of this scenario. Izabella’s laid back gestures show she knows she has control over this and must do as she is told by Eric, however her facial expressions suggest she does not enjoy it and is fed up with it.

0.52 - “I just can’t look, it’s killing me” – Brandon covers his eyes - here we once again see the relationship between the lyrics and visuals, however this time the visuals are used to emphasize the lyrics being sung.

The shot at 0.58 is the first time we see Brandon and Izabella’s love affair. They run behind a curtain which shows it is all in secret, this is also the first time we see Izabella smiling which suggests she has genuine feelings for him.

However straight after this shot (at 0.59) we see that Eric is watching them through the curtains which reveals he knows about their love affair.

The girls all then take to the floor infront of the band and begin dancing, however it is more like they are flaunting in front of the men, as if trying to sell themselves as their dancing is provocative and seductive.

Untitled from Hulya Levent on Vimeo.

• At 1.35 we see Brandon and Izabella together on the balcony, it’s night and fireworks are going off all around them. The camera then gives us a close up of them facing each other staring into each other’s eyes and once again we get the feeling there is true love there.
• This moment is then quickly ruined by her running back into Eric’s arms as she curls up on his lap like a child. This shot in particular shows the hold he has over her and pace of the editing and cuts shows how short lived her affair with Brandon is.
• Eric then throws her out of his lap showing his disregard and lack of genuine feeling for her as he just treats her like a possession.
• “It was only a kiss, how did it end up like this?” – we see Brandon’s frustration at himself for falling so easily for this girl he can never have; once again the lyrics and visuals help us understand what is going on and this time this is also supported by the music as it changes in order to sound like he is speaking out loud to himself in frustration.

We then see short, quick shots of Izabella dancing with Brandon however there are similar shots of her dancing with another man in between, signifying he can never have her to himself.

This similar technique is then used again with short shots of her intimacy with that man and also later Eric, between shots of Brandon covering his face in despair and frustration. These sequences build tension as a confrontation is almost inevitable as Brandon’s feelings build under the surface to a point where we expect him to explode.

The shot of them on the balcony reappears, however this time the sun is rising and Izabella seems weak in Brandon’s arms. This shot may signify their relationship is coming to an end; as the night ends so does their chances of being together.

This tension then continues to build throughout the checkers game between Eric and Brandon. The shot with the two men playing and an under-layered image of Izabella visible over the playing board show they are playing or ultimately fighting for her;

3.02 - The over the shoulder shots while the men play the board game is a shot typically seen in western style movies when the men are standing opposite each other as the tension builds, then the fastest finger on the trigger wins in a fight to the death.

The close up shots of each of their faces in turn, showing beads of sweat is also typical of this western scene and drags out the sequence building more tension.

This tension is then broken when Brandon loses the game and turns the board over in anger, signifying he cannot win Izabella from Eric and can never have her.

At 3.17 we see a blurred shot of Izabella and Brandon with their arms around each other; this shot suggests an element of mystery and secrecy as it is not entirely clear who the man is, however it is quite safe for us to assume that it is Brandon and that they have tried to continue their love affair in secret.

3.22 – another shot of them on the balcony as Izabella seems to die in Brandon’s arms which may suggest the official end of their relationship.

There is then another shot of Izabella with Brandon however this time he is the one biting into the apple, this shows a very sudden change in power as it now seems he has taken the place a Eric as the man in charge of Izabella

This is then contradicted again as in the last few seconds we have another close up of Eric taking a bite from the fruit suggesting that Brandon almost had Izabella but not quite as Eric has the most power and the dominance once again shifts back to Eric.

The last shot then signifies the official end of their relationship as Brandon realises he has been a fool for letting himself fall so deep with this girl, and that he can never have her to himself and walks away from her hand and the twisted love triangle as the music also comes to an end.

Chosen Brief

1. A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

• a website homepage for the band;
• a cover for its release as part of the digipak (CD/DVD package);
• a magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD package).