Chosen Locations

Our project needs several locations including: an idyllic area, a cemetery, and several memorable places.
For our idyllic area, we decided to chose Walton-on-the-Naze. We selected this location as we have all visited it at some point, and it only an hours journey away. Moreover, the location boasts a beach and vast amounts of scenic landscapes, that lack urbanisation.

For our cemetery, we decided to chose the one closest to us, as it is only a short bus journey away and is rather large. Furthermore, the cemetery in placed on a main road, which means that we are able to film the part with our female walking towards the cemetery without any difficulties.

The memorable locations we decided to chose included London, our local park and a house. More detail about these locations will follow once we know the exact locations.

Chosen Locations - Montage

For the montage section of our music video, we have decided to select locations that differ from the other locations we will be using. This will hopefully show a clear difference between the montage section and the remainder of the video. We have also added some details of what we would be doing in these locations. We have decided not to create a storyboard for this section, as we want to create a natural and legitimate feel.
Central Park

• Swinging on the swings
• Sitting under a large, solitary tree
• Having a picnic

Eastbrook End

• Running through long grass
• Feeding the ducks
• Sitting by the lake
• Kiss?

House

• Opening birthday presents
• Making cakes
• Waving into camera
• Feeding/playing with dog

London

• Train together
• Train alone
• Run amongst pigeons
• Site seeing

Beach

• Arcades
• Pier
• Beach houses
• Sitting on wall - boy hugs girl

Provisional Idea

After gaining permission to use the song 'Corner', we decided that we wanted to portray a story in our music video. This differs to the videos we were inspired by, but does mirror many other successful music videos.

Our idea centres around two people: one male and one female.

At first, we see the female alone in an idyllic location. She appears to be upset, yet not hysteric. Her mood lightens when she discovers the male character, who we discover is a romantic interest. The pair are seen having fun and being happy, which is parallel to the more uplifting part of the song. At this point, we are led to believe that the girl was unhappy as she was not in the company of the male, and that they are now together.

We are then shown the female walking alone with a bouquet of flowers and a solemn expression. She walks into a cemetery, before laying down the flowers and standing by the grave. We see the boy put his hand on the girl's shoulder, before fading away. It is at this point that we realise the boy had died, and it is only the memories the female has of him that keeps her happy.

As a tear rolls down the female's face, we are shown a montage of memories and enjoyable times the pair shared, which highlight their dependence on one another, and intensify the emotions the audience have. This section will occur as the mood of the song changes into one more positive.

The final shot will show the female looking happy. She is obviously still upset at the male's death, but is grateful for the memories she has.

We think that this story will be emotive and fit with the song, which will hopefully help us create a high quality piece of work.

Possible Controversies in Our Music Video

After studying Rihanna's 'Man Down' video, we decided to look at the possible controversial issues we could tackle in our project.
Molestation

• As our song discusses the aftermath of a traumatic event, the possibility of including an unwanted sexual experience may be worth attempting. However, this is a difficult subject to complete convincingly and tastefully, and may therefore be offensive to many people if performed poorly.

Natural Disasters

• A natural disaster could be shown in our music video, as it is something that affects a large number of people, especially those in more tropical countries. However, it would be expensive to re-create a natural disaster for our music video, and would be extremely hard to record actual footage as natural disasters are largely unexpected.

Same-Sex Relationships

• Even though same-sex relationships are generally considered 'normal', there are still certain prejudices people have regarding them. Moreover, there are certain rules broadcasters must abide by when exhibiting certain shows. For example, in a Glee episode, both an opposite-sex kiss and a same-sex kiss were shown when the programme aired after the 9pm watershed. When the episode aired at an earlier time, the same-sex kiss was cut, whilst the opposite-sex kiss remained, even though it was more sexual than the same-sex kiss. A problem with discussing this topic in our text would be the possibility that we would get distracted by trying to prove a point, that the project as a whole would become lost and therefore of a lower quality.

As a group, we decided that it would be easier for us to not include controversy in our music video, as it allows us to concentrate fully on the technical aspect of filming, and doesn't force us to constantly analyse the music video's content in terms of proving our point.

Controversy: 'Man Down' - Rihanna

Rihanna's 'Man Down' video sparked controversy as it involved both murder and rape. The short film depicts a female, Rihanna, shooting a man in a busy train station. The action then goes back to the previous day, where we see the events unfold. The protagonist visits her friends and family, before attended a night club. She is shown to be dancing with the antagonist, who she murdered at the beginning of the video. After declined his advances, the protagonist leaves the night club, where she is followed and raped by the antagonist; these events cause the protagonist to act rashly and end the life of the man who raped her.

The video is hard hitting and highlights a topic that is very controversial and the centre of many debates. After watching the video, we decided that it included some form of controversy in our music video may make our video seem more professional, and also make our work fit into these genre of text.

Technique: 'What's My Name' - Rihanna

Our music video will include a section where our female character will walk along a street for roughly seven to eight seconds. In previous tasks and coursework projects, we have tended to use one or two shots to show this. However, the result has been rather poor, with the flow of our film deteriorating as a result; the audience is bored by a continuous shot of someone walking.
To change this, we have decided that we want to add more shots to this sequence, and also change the angles and types of shot we are using. An example that came to mind was Rihanna's 'What's My Name' video, in which there is a large section of walking. This sequence uses several jump cuts, and many interesting shots. We hope to gain considerable inspiration from this, which will improve our work.

BT Infinity Advert

As the song we are using for our project was featured in a recent BT Infinity advert, we decided that it would be beneficial to us to see how the company used the song in the context of their advertisement.

The song is used in a positive way, showing the event that makes the people's world "shift and shake" is the introduction of BT's fibre-optic broadband. The way the song was shown in this advertisement will probably be different to how we would show it in our music video. This could be because we are showing the entire song, and do not intend to try and sell a product to an audience.