Song permission: email

Today, we formulated an email to send to the producer of Empty Gold, Jim Eliot, using Rhianne's media email address:

Here is some information from https://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p01_uk_copyright_law which details the acts that are allowed and the acts that are restricted:

Our use of the track falls under the fair dealings act "Performance, copies or lending for educational purposes" and we do not plan on selling our final product, therefore it is unlikely that there will be any copyright issues. However, we feel that it is important that we gain the permission of the producer before using the track, to avoid any concerns.

Artist research: record labels

Here is some additional research I have done surrounding our chosen artist. Halsey is signed to the major labels, Astralwerks and Capitol Records. This research allowed me to explore how these record labels market Halsey to her target audience in a way that we hope to achieve when producing our music video for her track. 

Inspirational music video: Take Shelter - Years & Years

The use of the rural setting/location in this video is something our group really like. We like the idea of filming dappled light coming through the trees in the early hours of the morning, and we would love to film in a misty setting, to create the eerie atmosphere in our music video.

We have also been considering the use of symbols in our music video, as we would like to represent themes such as coming of age, femininity and danger in a subtle way. We also think symbols would give our video a distinctive edge; our music video would lend itself to the hybrid category incorporating all three elements of performance narrative and abstract videos.

The way depth of field is used in the video is also very effective. We would like to have the characters in our video run through the forest, especially the 'Big Bad Wolf' which we would like to keep hidden and obscure to ensure the big reveal at the end is powerful.

Here is the actual video, where the mixture of fast and slow paced shots can be seen clearly:

Inspirational music video: Brain - Banks

One of my favourite artists and music videos, Banks' 'Brain' has a really simple and effective use of colour and setting. The monochrome colour palette, with tinges of red later on in the video, looks elegant and helps highlight specific elements of the video; in this shot, for example, Banks' veil is given prominence as it stands out against the black background.

The circle border places emphasis on star image, which is something we would really like to replicate. The circle dimension also creates a somewhat abstract perspective and works very well with flashing symmetrical shapes, which we could replicate using flashing symbols in our own music video.

The video is edited to the beat really well; where the tempo picks up at the end of the song, the flashing images become more recurrent. This is another element we would like to try and achieve in our own video, as the instrumental parts of the song are jumpy and we would like our visuals to reflect this.

Here is the full video, in which all the fast paced shots of abstract imagery are given much more justice than in the screenshots above!

Post treatment pitch: audience feedback

  

Here is the audience feedback we received from our classmates, and a group vlog addressing some of the questions we were asked. We feel that the metaphorical 'Big Bad Wolf' idea was unclear in our pitch - we are still undecided as to what the Wolf should represent, whether it be our protagonists fear of adulthood, becoming a woman, or an actual physical character.
Pitching our ideas has made it easier for us to research how each lyric should correlate to our narrative visuals; we have established what elements we would like to include in the video, but we have yet to put them in a suitable order.

Treatment pitch: presentation

Here is the pitch we presented to the class, which details our current ideas for our music video and shows some of the other clips we took inspiration from.

This was a really useful task, as the audience feedback we got from our peers (who are all part of the young/ teen demographic) helped us to develop our narrative. We now have a much better idea of what techniques to use, to draw in our target audience.

Pre treatment pitch: planning

We spent today's lesson brainstorming and developing our current ideas for our music video. We will pitch our ideas to the class on Friday, which gives us the oppurtunity to gain some audience feedback and help us elaborate on the particular details of our video, including the areas in our narrative that need to be researched. We organised the different aspects of our video into a table, including locations, costume, props etc to make it easier for us to plan each of these separately. Here is the table we created:

Our current plan details a gothic fairytale narrative, set in a forest location. We have also thought about projecting symbols onto our protagonist in another shot with a dark background, heavily promoting star image. The props and costume will relate to the character in our chosen fairytale; we are currently thinking about Little Red Riding Hood however our ideas are at an early stage - we plan to research more dark fairytales, drawing inspiration from the Brother's Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson.

Our editing ideas include reverse editing and match cuts, reflecting our character's constant struggle with her coming of age. We feel that both fast and slow paced editing could be effective in both parts of the video. We would like to create abstract illusions in our video, thus changing the opacity to create a layered effect might also be effective.

We have also considered our USP (unique selling point) - we feel that our narrative, as it is hardly explored in indie music videos, might provide us with a distinct edge. Hopefully, having a strong narrative will make our video interesting and memorable.

Artist research: Halsey

Here is a prezi, presenting research into the artist of our chosen track, the rising star, Halsey.
This was research was important, to aid our understanding of the target audience we are marketing to and to gain a deeper understanding of our artists background and influences.

Inspirational ad: Rihanna Training - Puma

We really like the idea of using images/symbols projected onto the body of our star, as shown in Rihanna's Puma ad. We feel that it could be useful to highlight our characters femininity and her internal struggle, whilst looking sophisticated and almost bewitching. These two things combined could really help us achieve a professional look in our music video.

Inspirational film clip: Snow White Forest Scene

This is one of the most haunting scenes which resonates with me from my childhood! Although this is not the fairytale we intend to explore, we feel that this scene relates heavily to our themes of fear and escapism. It draws parallels with the location used in the fairytale we have thought the most about using (Little Red Riding Hood).

Final song choice: mood board

Of our three choices, we have decided to use 'Empty Gold' as our track.

Here is the mood board I have created for our song which displays ideas for location, mise-en scene, costume, symbols and themes. This has been created using secondary images from the internet. 

We have chosen to use a rural location, perhaps in a forest/ woodland area, as the lyrics describe the singer seeing through 'the trees of loneliness', which reflects her feelings. The classic fairytale little red riding hood, which our music video is based on, also took place in the woods. This location conforms to the usual settings of other indie music videos. However, I have included some pictures of Halloween in an urban street location, as we would like to create a dark, eerie atmosphere in our video; filming on the scariest night of the year might help us achieve this. 

The costume which our star will wear is a black hooded cape, giving the 'red riding hood' narrative an obvious twist. This subverts the conventions of an indie music video, as most of the artists are plain clothed or have a hipster/grunge outfit on. This challenges Andrew Goodwin's theory of a 'voyeuristic treatment of the female body' being used to sell videos, as our star will not be creating sex appeal and we will not focus on images of her body. 

I have also included symbols including the black cat, and one of the Magic Seals: the 3rd pentacle of moon which " Protects against all dangers of travel, all attacks by night, and every danger from water." Red riding hood travels through the woods to deliver food to her poorly grandmother - incorporating this symbol could again, be used to indicate that she is protected from the big bad wolf and that she will escape. The word 'Bildungsroman' is also on my mood board, as we would like to subvert the representation of women as victims; the 'coming of age' theme implies that our star does in fact escape her childhood fears and becomes a strong, powerful woman. 

The images of shadows and mist also correlate with the lyrics 'smoke as black as charcoal', the photographs of dappled light coming through the trees illustrate the 'morning light' and the images of shadows relate to our star 'dancing in the shadows'. In this way, we have conformed to Goodwin's theory as we plan to link our visuals with the lyrics and incorporate 'star image' within our narrative/ performance video.

Group vlog: song choice

Here is our first A2 group vlog, which details the reasons for our song choice and our current ideas for a music video. We now have mood boards to create and a treatment pitch to prepare for!

Fairytale research: Little Red Riding Hood (chosen fairytale)

There have been many versions of Little Red Riding Hood through the ages, all with the same basic storyline. The tale rose in popularity when it was reintroduced by the Brothers Grimm in the 19th century.

A girl in a red cloak is traveling through the woods to deliver food to her sick grandmother, when she meets with a hungry wolf. The wolf persuades her to pick flowers for grandma, and races ahead to her grandmother's house. There, he swallows her grandmother whole, dresses up in her clothing, and lies in wait for Little Red Riding Hood so he can eat her too. An huntsman intervenes at the end of the tale, and hacks the wolf to open with a pair of shears, saving Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother, who climbs out of the wolf's belly.

However, in Perrault's 1697 version, he intended the tale as a warning to young women to avoid sexual predators, he allows the flirtatious Little Red Riding Hood to be eaten. Little Red simply strips naked, gets into bed, and gets eaten up by the big bad wolf, with no miraculous relief from a huntsman.

“From this story one learns that children, especially young lasses, do very wrong to listen to strangers. Alas! Who does not know that these wolves are of all such creatures the most dangerous!”

The wolf represents a sexual predator in the early version, a popular idiom among the audience originally intended to hear this tale (for a girl who lost her virginity) was "elle avoit vû le loup" which translates to “she has seen the wolf” and Perrault makes this moral explicit at the end.

This tale is perfect for us, as it incorporates an easily accessible location (a forest) and only two main characters, one of which is open to interpretation. This fairytale is widely known by our target audience and would therefore be immediately recognized, and easily relatable. As there have been many versions of this tale, we could add in our own twists without straying from the basic storyline. The 'coming of age' theme would be easy to incorporate as the tale has clear sexual undertones and the Big Bad Wolf representing a sexual predator, without the graphic details, could also be easily portrayed. Although young women are represented as victims in many versions of this tale, we could challenge this by having our protagonist slay the 'wolf' as to subvert the stereotypical representation of women and make our video empowering.

Fairytale research: Hansel and Gretel

Another popular tale by the Brothers Grimm, 1812, was Hansel and Gretel. The version most of us heard as children is already pretty gruesome.

During a famine, an evil stepmother orders her husband to abandon his children in the woods, but Hansel leaves a trail of pebbles to guide him and his sister home safely. The next time they are abandoned, Hansel drops breadcrumbs, which are eaten by the birds. Lost and starving, they stumble upon a house made from gingerbread, only to be captured by a cannibalistic witch who lives inside. The witch decides that Hansel would be the more succulent child, and locks him up in a cage to fatten him, while starving his sister.

“Now, then, Gretel,” she cried to the girl. “Let Hansel be fat or lean, tomorrow I will kill him, and cook him.”

When she orders Gretel to heat up the oven to cook Hansel, she tricks the witch into leaning into the oven and pushes her in, burning her to death. The children rob the house of riches and return to their father, to find that their evil stepmother has died. However the French original, called 'The Lost Children', the witch is the Devil, and the Devil attempts to bleed the children on a sawhorse. The Devil has his wife show them how to do this. In this version, Hansel and Gretel slit her throat, steal all the Devil’s money, and run off.

This is a great dark fairytale, which is well known by many members of our target audience. However, it would be hard to incorporate performance shots if we used this as our narrative. If we were to stick to the original tale, we would also need a young male character and an old character to play the witch/devil. These might be hard to find. While a forest location is perfect, the gingerbread house, one of the best parts of this tale, would have to be omitted as we don't have access to this type of location. The children getting their revenge in the original tale is a fantastic element, as it subverts the stereotypical representation of young people as vulnerable and dependent. However, it would be quite hard to slit another character's throat in our video, without it seeming too gory and again, very unrealistic.

Fairytale research: Rapunzel

In Disney's 2010 movie "Tangled" a young girl's is kidnapped and imprisoned by a witch who uses her hair to maintain her own looks. Eventually, the girl grows into a beautiful woman and is rescued by a prince, who climbs the tower using her tresses and cuts Rapunzel's hair to kill the witch. Rapunzel and the prince live happily ever after.

In Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de la Force's 1698 original story, Persinette, a girl was kidnapped by a fairy at birth and imprisoned in a tall tower with no stairs. One day, a prince sees Persinette, climbs up her hair to the tower, seduces her and she falls pregnant. When the fairy discovers she is pregnant, she cuts off her locks and banishes her.

“Enraged at the sight of Persinette’s maladie, she seized her hair and cut the precious cords.”

The next time the prince visits, he finds the fairy in the tower who taunts him and tells him her shall never see Persinette again; he jumps from the tower and lands in thorn bushes which peirce his eyes.  The lovers eventually find each other and the prince’s sight is restored by Persinette’s tears. The prince wonders around as a blind homeless person, until by miraculous chance he meets Rapunzel, who's tears have the same healing power as they do in the movie, and the prince's sight is restored. The two return to his kingdom to marry.

If we chose to use Rapunzel as our theme, our actress would have to wear really long extensions which could prove to be quite annoying. We would also need access to a tower without any stairs, and someone who is really good at climbing or abseiling, to represent the prince in our video. Falling from a tower into a prickly thorn bush might also be dangerous for the prince. Another pregnancy takes place in this fairytale, which as previously mentioned, may be hard to show realistically; although the fairytale is popular, it may be hard to incorporate in terms of practicality.

Fairytale research: Sleeping Beauty

The Disney film we all know, sees a beautiful princess put to sleep when she pricks her finger on a spindle. She sleeps for 100 years, until a prince kisses her, wakes her, and they all live happily ever after.

The Italian poet, Giambattista Basile, published the early version of this fairytale this as 'Sun, Moon and Talia' in 1634. In this early version, the princess does not prick her finger and instead, gets silver flax underneath her fingernail. She falls, and is allegedly pronounced dead; her father cannot face the idea of losing her, so he lays her body on a bed in one of his estates. A king, out hunting in the woods, then catches sight of her...

 
“As he tried to wake her, she seemed so incredibly lovely that he began to grow hot with lust.”

 The king does not wake princess Talia (the sleeping girl) with a kiss, but instead rapes her while she is unconscious. She gives birth to two children (helpfully attended to by some fairies) and one sucks her finger, eliminating the curse so she wakes up. Princess Talia falls in love with the king, but the king, having already married, has to deal with his jealous wife. The queen kidnaps their children and orders the kill them and feed them to the king. The jealous queen also threatens to burn Talia to death, but the king has his wife burnt to death instead.

Sleeping Beauty is a well known tale and would most likely be quite easy to incorporate as a theme. However, in the original version, a rape takes place. This is a sensitive topic and has to be represented with extreme care. While we could subtly imply this reference, the pregnancy which occurs would be hard to include and the queen burning to death later on may look unrealistic. This may be hard to put across to our target audience and we would not like to represent women as victims; using this tale might do just that.

Fairytale research: Snow White

Disney's 1938 saw audiences in the depression-era (in need of uplifting) flock to see the tale of a beautiful young woman who bests a villainous queen and captures the heart of a handsome prince. The film definitely omitted some grisly details, perhaps for the sake of the audience, who would see the film just one year before the outbreak of before world war 2.

In the original 1812 Grimm version of this tale however, the evil Queen is Snow White’s mother, not her stepmother.The film has a roughly similar premise to the original tale, however when The Queen sends the huntsman out to bring back Snow White’s heart, it was never mentioned in the film that she also demanded her liver and lungs, which she then meant to eat.

Another omission was the fact that she was not actually in a deep sleep when the prince finds her at the end of the tale — she’s dead, and he’s the one carting off her dead body to play with. His servant trips, jostles the coffin, and dislodges the poisoned apple from Snow White’s throat.

A final dark twist in the original tale is that the evil Queen is not chased off a cliff by the Dwarves, and is instead invited Snow White’s wedding where she is forced to step into iron shoes that had been cooking on a fire, and then made to dance until she drops down dead.

While Snow White would also be recognized by our audience, the Seven Dwarves would mean we have to include more people in the music video. While this can be done, it may be inconvenient if people cannot film on certain days. It also pulls the focus away from our star, whom we would like to stand out. Our lyrics also refer to 'the trees of loneliness' which suggests that our protagonist should be isolated and alone in the video.

Fairytale research: Cinderella

The 1950 Disney film is based on Charles Perrault's original version, "Cinderella or The Little Glass Slipper," written in 1697. This sees a beautiful young woman who's is enslaved by her evil stepmother but gets a chance at happiness when her fairy godmother transforms Cinderella's ragged attire into an elegant gown so that she can attend a royal ball and meet Prince Charming. Her magical reprieve only lasts until midnight, however, and she flees, leaving behind one of her glass slippers. The prince finds it and goes looking for the mystery woman who's enthralled him. Cinderella's two evil stepsisters try on the slipper but their feet are too big. The shoe is just right for Cinderella, and she marries the handsome prince.

However, the Grimm version "Aschenputtel" penned in 1812, has a nasty twist which sees the evil stepmother hand a knife to the eldest of her two daughters; the nasty stepsisters cut off parts of their own feet in order to fit them into the glass slipper hoping to fool the prince.

“Then her mother gave her a knife and said, “Cut the toe off; when thou art Queen thou wilt have no more need to go on foot.” 

The prince is fooled and rides off with her, until two talking pigeons alert him to her blood-soaked shoe, that then proceed to peck out the stepsisters’ eyes. They spend the rest of their lives as blind, lame beggars while Cinderella lives in luxury with the prince.

Although Cinderella is a well known tale, it may be difficult to find a suitable location for this type of narrative. Some of the best parts of the tale, such as the transformation of Cinderella from a maid to a potential princess will be hard to pull of in terms of editing, and the twisted original tale would look too gory and unrealistic. We feel that having gory imagery fits more closely with the Rock genre and there are less subtle references to 'coming of age' that we can make throughout the video if we use this tale.