More Inspiration

The original inspiration for our sparkler scene was gathered from the E4 teen drama 'Skins'. We like the way you can see the light trails and the blurry atmosphere. We also like how the characters can be seen but you cannot recognise who they are because of the blur.
Below is a link to said clip:

http://www.e4.com/video/RO0v7cmj3zUKbFc8l3vaY/play.e4

Animatic

rough mock-up of our music video

Props

Today myself and nancy sat down and wrote up a table of props that we are going to use when filming and how we are going to source them.

Interview with target audience

We took minutes of our meeting with target audience:

Tom: As you all know Jordan and India and based on what we've told you about the concept for our video, what do you think of them as choices for our main characters?
Grace: I think they're both really good people to have chosen! The song is pretty alternative sounding and both Jord and India have sort of their own unique style which should mean you don't have to do much in terms of sorting out costumes for them or getting them to act a certain way for the video.
Martin: Yeah, I think they're good choices as well. Plus they both look quite old for their age and could probably pass for a few years older than they actually are. This will make the story of the video more authentic and believable and should help to make the video appealing to people a bit older than us, like uni students.
Gav: I'd agree with all that, I guess the only thing you have to consider is if they look a bit too alternative? Although you want your characters to be different looking, surely they also have to look like people that the target audience will relate to.
Nancy: Do you like music videos to have a strong narrative or prefer when it's a bit more performance-based?
Martin: I like a mix of the two. If a video has some sort of story to it, it definitely makes you want to watch it until the end. But at the same time, if you like the artist you want to see the song actually being performed too.
Gav: Yeah, I'd probably say I feel the same. I suppose it's different if you're using dance music though because it's not like you can show a band performing when there is no band.
Grace: Exactly. I think if the song is a dance track then you've got to have some sort of dancing involved in the video though. If it's all just narrative then it won't look very realistic.
Tom: Here are some photos and screen grabs from Google Street View that we've taken so you can see whereabouts we're planning to film. Thinking about the song and concept, how appropriate do you think they are?
Grace: The place with the garages looks good because it's kind of got the balance between looking suburban but also like it could be in a more run-down area, like where the two characters are coming from. The real issue would be if there's a lot of bad weather though, as from the pictures it looks like you're wanting to film quite a bit outside.
Martin: I think there's something almost industrial about it, which I guess links with the genre of the song. The settings for inside the houses look pretty good too. Fairly generic, but I guess that's what you're going for?
Gav: I like the locations you've got so far and I definitely think they fit well with the song.
Nancy: What do you think of the effects that we tried out on Premiere? Which do you think would work well in the actual video?
Gav: I really like the one towards the end that makes it look like you're seeing double. It looks like the sort of thing you'd see in a real music video.
Martin: The distort one is cool. Not quite sure how you could use it but it's a bit quirky and different like the song and so could be useful.
Grace: I pretty much liked all of the effects except the one with the sort of beam of light in. It just seemed a bit pointless I suppose.

More Inspiration

This video makes use of the green screen in the same we are planning to use it.
It is made very obvious that the artist is in fact stood infront of a green screen and adds to the DIY feel of the video.

Risk Assessment

This is a list of potential risks when we are filming.

Shots Of Potential Locations

A few locations that we have thought about using for some of our outdoor scenes.

Here is a row of garages where we are thinking about filming the dance scenes with the sparklers. We would have to get permission from the owners.

this location there is a small disused railway track which we thought would be an interesting location to use.

Finding Extras

Today Nancy and I posted on the focus group asking people if they would be happy to participate in some of our dancing scenes, we got a good response and a lot of people said they were happy to take part.

Focus Group - Digipak and Advert

After I completed my digipak and advert i posted a photo of them on our facebook focus group in order to hopefully get some feedback on what my target audience thought of them. The comments on my Digipak were very helpful and detailed but there were no detailed comments on the advert, the focus group just said that it was impressive and that they liked it.

Caribou Advert - Coursework - Final

Caribou Digipak - Coursework - Final

Focus Group

Me and Nancy have created a joint Facebook group, where we will post questions and ask for feedback from our focus group. We added a total of 33 people to the group as we think that these people fit in with our target audience.
The first thing we posted on the page was a link to the song we are using for our music video and we asked people to comment on what the song made them visualise:

Fonts For Production

I used a website called DaFont to find a font to use for my Advert and Digipak. There were thousands of fonts to choose from so i had to narrow it down to just sans-serif fonts. These are some of the fonts that i considered using:

Location Ideas

Here is a short list of a few locations that we are considering filming at, this list is not definite but we have tried to pin down some specifics to make our idea easier to picture.
Myself and Nancy have also decided that we are going to make use of the 'green screen' facilities we have at college to film a few of our scenes.

 A small block of flats with a gritty feel    >>>

An aesthetically 'normal' looking suburban house >>>

 Neutral office setting  (possible green screen) >>>













A supermarket aisle (possible use of green screen)>>>>

Music Video - Genre Research

Four Tet - Hands
Four Tet is a band that is closely related to Caribou and are classified in a similar genre. Although this video is very abstract and the majority of the effects are difficult to replicate, i do find the use of soft focus and vivid dream-like colours inspiring. I would like try and utilise these effects in our own music video.

Gold Panda - Marriage
Gold Panda are also a band from a similar genre. In the video i like the way that the focal point is a chinese lantern and there is one in every single shot. We could interpret this idea as our own because we were already thinking of using a balloon as a prop in our own music video. Also i like the way that unorthodox camera angles are used and the way that the director has explored with the depth of field (focus).

Pictures for Advert and Digipak

For my Advert and Digipak i have planned to use 3 simple photos and explore the ways of editing them in photoshop to create strange effects.

Originally i was against the idea of using any trees or leaves in my production but i've decided that im going to try and play around with the transparency and layer it over some other images to try and create a deeper effect.

Pitch Feedback

Me and Nancy received feedback from our pitch. Our media teacher discussed our pitch with us one on one. The majority of the feedback we received was positive and our media teacher seemed impressed with our pitch. He also gave us some constructive criticism;

- We need to think about our suitability and who the music video would be targeted at in more detail.

- We discussed some ideas with our teacher about how to edit the video and create some interesting effects.

- We need to be careful with our mise en scene as it could look cliche when portraying rich and poor, we need to be more symbolic rather than literal.

- We need to make use of reflectors when filming in little/no light.

Casting Meeting

Me and Nancy held a cast meeting today with our main character candidates. We had conversations about how enthusiastic they were about acting in our music video, how available they were for filming and if they had any reservations about acting.

After the meeting me and Nancy spoke at length about who we should pick for our lead roles and came to the decision that we would use Jordan and India for our male and female lead roles. 

We came to this decision because they both have 'striking' appearances and we thought that this could give our music video something extra. 

They also fit in with our video because both of our lead characters are supposed to 'stand out' and look unique. 
We are confident that they will be professional and reliable when filming.

Other Casting

Although we have already listed and discussed our options for our lead roles. We now realise that we will need other people to play more minor roles in our production. 

We have discussed who will be our most likely candidates for our minor roles and they have all agreed to be in the video at some point. These are the people we have chosen:
- Grace Simpson
- Mollie Grizzell
- Leila Arrazi
- Ellie Morley
- Martin Welsby
- Gavin Murphy
- Rob Wootton

This list is not definite and it is likely that more people will be added but these are the people that first came to mind. 

Casting Options

India Rafiqi

A possible candidate for our role of lead female is India. We are considering using India for our lead role because she has a very striking and unique appearance for example, her look is very urban and modern which fits in with the conceptual ideas we have for our video. At the moment we are unsure how comfortable/confident she would be playing the lead role but we think that with some persuasion and meetings she would be great for the role

Billy Francis

Billy is a possible candidate for our male lead role. Coming from a performing/acting background billy would be an ideal choice for our video and we are confident that he would be able to play the role convincingly. He would also be ideal for our lip syncing scenes as he would give it his all.

Holly Lyall

Another possible candidate for our female lead role is Holly. We are considering Holly because we think she embodies our genre of music and the idea we have for our video. Holly is reliable and organised and would have no problem arranging filming times with us.

Jordan Blackwell

Jordan is another option for our lead male role. He (similar to India) has a striking appearance which would give our video an edge. He also lives close to some of the locations we are considering filming at which would make it easier to organise filming at short notice.

Creativity - Optical Art

Me and Nancy were set the task to find out more about optical art and create a powerpoint to show the class. We were both very interested in the topic and decided that we may use elements of optical art when filming our own music video, such as projecting optical illusions on to people/objects.

Op art from NancyTheo

The Pitch!

Da pitch final from NancyTheo

Communication with Caribou

This is the e-mail that we sent to Dan Snaith (Caribou) to ask for permission to use the track.
















This is the reply we received the following day, confirming that we have permission.

Practice with Digipack Template

Experimenting with Photoshop

Redundancy and Entropy

Redundancy is something that is highly predictable/expected and conforms to typical conventions. Redundancy is necessary in order to make effective communications. E.g. an image of clothes hanging on a line would be highly redundant but an image of cats hanging on a line would not be.

Entropy is something that is highly unpredictable and unexpected, it is the opposite of redundancy. Entropy makes things interesting by breaking conventions. E.g. An image of a house shaped like a tomato is highly entropic.

Redundancy and Entropy is culturally determined, something that is entropic to our culture may be less entropic or even redundant in other cultures.

Stop Frame Animation Attempt

Busted Video Re-Make