Group meeting 2

Agenda: To organise all aspects of our project ready for the pitch (which we hope to do on Monday)

The main aspect of our project which we needed to finalise for the pitch was the marketing for the band's debut. As a group we created a brainstorm for the campaign, which stretched across different types of media; Radio, TV, Magazines, Online etc.
Here is our brainstorm from the meeting:



As we had now finalised the main aspects ready for our pitch, we also took some time to think about possible band, album and record label names as part of our marketing campaign.

Band Names: 

• The Dropouts
• Melted Sin
• The Beautiful Damned

Album Name:
For our album cover we were thinking, to tie in with the theme of the lead singer being a criminal, that the main photo should be a mugshot of the lead singer. On the mugshot board we were going to write the band name and the album name. For the album name we thought of "You'll Love Me When I'm Famous", which we all liked as it ties in with our main audience of the disenfranchised youth of today.

Record Label:
In our initial idea for our music video we wanted to have the lead singer set fire to a car, but unfortunately this was too impractical. To keep with this destructive idea, we thought of naming our offshoot record label "Burning Car Records".

Possible Track Names:
Finally, we planned some songs to put on the track list on the back cover of the album, using typical rock song names for the list. We also went for the conventional 10-track list on the CD.
Here is our initial track list:

Dystopian Living

You'll Love Me When I'm Famous

Goin' Down

Ugly Faces

On The Run

White Wine and Red Roses

When The Wind Blows From The East, Cut Down The Willow Tree ft. Slash

If Looks Could Kill

Despots And Killers ft. Billy Joe Armstrong

The Devil Made Us His Children

All the tracks on the above list are subject to change, although at the moment we are very happy with them. You will also notice that two of the tracks have featured artists. We have decided to do this and have chosen artists who we think both the core and secondary audiences can recognise, appealing to them more.

Band Identity Planning

Here is our first draft of a possible outfit for the lead singer of our rebellious girl band, as drawn by Frank.
I had the idea that in order to give the band an identity as a group, as well as giving each member a unique identity, the members should be colour coordinated so that they predominantly wear black, but mixed with a colour unique to them.
This example shows how the lead singer will have purple as they're colour.

Here are the first drafts for the rest of the band, also drawn by Frank. As you can see, each of the members has their own 'rock' style and unique secondary colour i.e. the drummer is silver, guitarist is gold and the bassist is light blue.
I think the draft drawings fit to our genre and band image we want to create as the outfits have the look of a rock band. The lead singer's outfit fits in with our primary target audience of teenage females as it isn't too revealing.

Group meeting 1

Agenda:
To finalise the idea for our music video, alter any parts that are impractical and decide on the final cast, costumes, locations and props ready for us to pitch our idea.

Final Idea
The final idea for our music video is very similar to our initial idea. However, some of the features have been slightly edited to make them more practical. The performance aspect of the video has mostly stayed the same, with the idea of the band playing in a dark room with spotlights to show the isolation and to reinforce the idea of her confessing and being locked up.

Our idea for the ending has now been changed, as instead of showing the singer alone in the darkness, we will now show the singer blowing out the candles in the dark room, causing a blackout. We felt this ending was much more ambiguous and would therefore work better.

The narrative has also mostly stayed the same, although now in consideration of time and practicalities the flashback during the middle bridge will be done in a 'Sin City' style, with the shots being in black and white but with some colours showing through. Instead of a fairground we are thinking of maybe just using a park as it would be easier to access and film in.

We are still hoping to do the 'drawn animation' idea, which will mean we won't need an actual location as we can draw that into the background when editing.

Locations

• Studio / Dark Room - Band performance area
• Wooded area - Grave scene
• Park / Fairground & Bedroom - Flashback
• Plain room - Possible animation for flashback

Actors

• Singer - Olivia Cole
• Guitar - Ben Steyn
• Drums - Dito Widjono
• Bass - Ethan Carter / Frank Tan

Olivia Cole

Ben Steyn

Ethan Carter

Dito Widjono

As well as the band members, we will also need:

•  Boyfriend - James Reader
• Cheating Girl - TBC

Props

• Candles & Candle Stand
• Instruments
• Spade
• Photos of Girl + Boy
• Smashable / Burnable objects

Costumes

• Band costumes
• Boy's / other Girl's outfits
• Singer's 'normal' clothes

Initial Planning

When we first picked out Goin' Down as the song we wished to use, we started brainstorming ideas for the video on paper. First, we printed out the lyrics and made notes on the types of references we should consider, alongside a plan for set-ups.

To collect our ideas together, Frank wrote down his visualisation for each part of the song. Olivia then made her notes alongside his, and then James read over it and discussed his thoughts verbally. This proved helpful, as by this point we were already working on the same idea, but from this point we were able to tie down our key set-ups and moments within the song.