OVERVIEW

During the initial stages of the planning process, I was struggling to decide on a concrete idea for my music video. During my research I had come up with some ideas that I liked

but wasn’t sure how to put these into practice. Also, working by myself made this harder as I had no one else to discuss ideas with or to give me any outside input. As a result of these problems, I decided to work with someone else in my class, Toby, who was also struggling, to resolve both of our issues. This decision proved instrumental in deciding

what the music video was going to be about.Toby skateboards in his spare time, and this encouraged us to consider incorporating this

into our video somehow. We watched Mayer Hawthorne’s music video for ‘I Left My Heart In San Francisco’ (featured in a previous post) and this inspired us to create a similar

concept, following a skater/skaters, over one day. We were both also interested in graffiti, and out of these two ideas came a very urban, modern style which incorporated these

aspects of modern city life.

MOOD BOARD

TRACK CHOICE

The track that I had already decided on luckily fitted with our new visual concepts for the music video. By this point I had already emailed the artist and was able to

continue with using Vanilla’s track.The absence of lyrics in the track meant that there would have to be a clear focus throughout the video, as there were no lyrics to represent or convey through the

visuals.

As a result of this, we decided that we were going to attempt to convey the track by matching the visuals to the tempo of the track. The smooth, flowing sound of the track connotes movement which fits perfectly with the skateboarding concept. Furthermore, footage of this could be sped up of slowed down to fit the pace of

the music – creating a far more dynamic music video.Like the other music videos that I researched, I really liked the idea of following one person, and perhaps

including a type of ‘mini-interview’ with the skater that the video focuses on. In addition to this, both Toby and I agreed that the ‘twinkling’ sound at the beginning of the track creates the sense of early morning or the beginning of a day. We decided that we would like to somehow incorporate this

into our music video, by perhaps showing the skater in focus getting up in the morning, before he goes out skating during the day. Despite this storyline-type opening to our music video, we decided that a montage

narrative would be most fitting as we found it difficult to come up with a plot without any lyrics of stimulus.

ACTOR(S) AND COSTUME

As mentioned before, the other member of my group, Toby, skateboarded in his spare time so using him as the main actor in

our skateboarding music video. We may also include some footage of other skateboarders but they don’t necessarily need to

be actors, just extras in the background as the video mainly follows Toby throughout his day.

In this picture, you can see the costume that Toby will be wearing throughout the shoots. This includes a purple t-shirt, black tracksuit bottoms and black trainers with white soles. This outfit is rather plain, without any visible labels or brands to ‘normalise’ the character

and also to make this character more relatable to others. Furthermore, this outfit is a typical ‘street style’ look among young urban teens which fits with the genre of our track and the concepts we wish to use within our video. We took a picture of this costume so

that we could retain continuity throughout the course of the shoots.

POSSIBLE LOCATIONS

Examples of graffiti around Norwich. I like the variety of

colours and the very urban feel you get from both of these

locations

Both of these images are taken in the same location (Anglia

Square) and so filming within the backdrop of both of these images

would be relatively simple

I really like the time lapse effect in this image, as we were

considering using a time lapse of the sun coming up in the

morning at the beginning of our video. Furthermore, this road is

interesting as it has a bridge over it and an underpass as well which creates lot of interesting filming

opportunities

I like these images as wide, establishing shots of the city.

This would reinforce the urban genre of the music

video from the outset

This shot of Norwich market illustrates the colour and the

possible bustle when the market is open. The lanes in-between

market stalls could also make for interesting filming as they are an

enclosed location

I found these images on https://www.flickr.com/photos/sebauk/ This person is a photographer that mainly

works in Norfolk photographing predominantly

urban locations. I chose to base my location mood board around his photos because I felt that they encapsulated

the visuals that I was attempting to create myself.

STORY BOARD

Close up hand-held camera (by the person skating) focusing on their feet and the ground moving beneath them

Time-lapse still shot of a location with wide city views. Shows the sun coming up in the morning

Tracking shot of skateboarder jumping in front of a background of graffiti

Still worms’ eye shot from the bottom of some steps showing the skateboarder jumping down them

Still close up shot of the skateboard’s wheels travelling past

Still medium shot of skateboarder waking up in the morning in their bedroom