Storyboard

This is the storyboard which me and Kaylee made in order to plan out the details of each shot. It includes details of shot type, shot length, setting, weather, the type of edit, the lyric the shot goes with, and details about positions / emotions of actors. This will help us use our filming time efficiently and will allow us to film shots which will be useful for our video and will help us avoid having random shots which eventually don't fit with the video.

Inspirational Images

Below are a range of images which have inspired my ideas for this project so far, these images focus on relationships which will be a key feature of the music video which we are going to create.

Music Video Synopsis

This is a brief synopsis of what our music video will be about:

Our storyline consists of 3 characters - one girl and two boys. These will all be teenagers of ages 17/18; we have chosen to represent these people because the heterosexual relationship will meet audiences expectations and our target audience may aspire to have a relationship similar to the new couple, in addition these characters fit well with the story line. The opening sequence will show the girl splitting up with her boyfriend (who will also play lead singer within the video), then we will focus on him as he sings about missing her, this will be very natural and iconic - just him and his guitar in a field. Then the video will move on to showing the girl with another man, we will show them spending time together and enjoying themselves; this will take place in many different settings as we want to show that the couple spend a lot of time together and include a range of shots to make the video more interesting and eye catching. In contrast to the shots of the ex-boyfriend which I plan on filming during dull weather, the scenes with the new couple plan to be filmed when the weather is sunny, at the beach and the park, this use of pathetic fallacy will emphasize the contrast between to atmospheres and emotions. Towards the end of the song the lead singer will be shown asking her if she is happy with her new relationship and if she would consider getting back together; during this part we plan on asking the actor to mouth the lyrics to he girl as if he is asking her to take him back. Finally the camera will focus on him singing again and as he finishes we will edit it to fade out.

Genre Theory

The genre of a music video sets the audiences expectations and allows them to predict what will happen within the video. This can be useful because audience members can decide if they would be interested in watching a video based on the genre it fits into, therefore it is important to make the genre of a video as clear as possible within the first 20 seconds.
The genre of music which we are going to use will be alternative/indie rock; we will make this clear at the beginning of the video by immediatley showing a guitar being played. In addition we aim to use an opening title for our video and the colours and font will have connotations of indie/rock music.
The genre of the story within our music video is 'romance' as it focuses on a couple and the hearbreak of the boyfriend. This will be clear within the first few scenes of our video (as shown in the photo of our storyboard to the right) because we will show the girl and her first boyfriend in bed, and the new boyfriend will then take his place; this will show the transition from the ex to the new boyfriend and introduce that the video will focus on relationships and love. We will also show the genre of romance through the fonts and colours within the title sequence. In addition the genre will be made clear by the music and lyrics of the song.
On the other hand, as using the conventions of a genre can make the content predictable, many music video creators decide to subvert the genre in order to surprise and interest people and encourage them to question the genre and what is happening in the video. Using subversion can be a successful way to draw in an audience because the video will be something new and is less likely to be seen as boring or unoriginal. Despite this, sometimes sticking to the conventions of a genre can also draw in an audience because people will know what they are going to watch and may be drawn in by the genre itself, for example some people prefer romance to other genres. 
We have decided to use the conventions of a romance video because the storyline will link well with the storyline; Andrew Goodwin suggested a visual representation of lyrics may make my video more appealing to our target audience. A romantic storyline will also allow viewers to aspire to be like the characters or have a relationship like theirs; the ex-boyfriend character will encourage viewers to feel sympathy and could be used as advice or support for people who are going through similar situations to the ex boyfriend. In addition the genre of romance is liked by many; particularly females who make up a large proportion of our target audience, therefore I believe that by using the conventions of romantic videos our video will appeal well to our audience.

Email to record label

Below is the email which we sent to A Rocket To The Moon's record label asking for permission to use the song. This is important when creating a music video in order to avoid breeching copyright.

Dear Fueled by Ramen,

We are currently studying A Level Media Studies at The King's School, Devon. For our media coursework we are creating a music video for any song of our choice. We are writing to seek your permission to use the song 'Like We Used To' by A Rocket To The Moon.

Please note, this video will be used only for our coursework and will not be distributed or marketed in any form.  We would greatly appreciate your permission to use this song.

Many thanks

Kaylee Hawkins and Laura Dickinson

Initial ideas images

Below are a selection of photos which I have taken to show my initial ideas about shots of the couple that we could include in our video. Many of the show the girl and boy looking into one another's eyes; I have taken images from different angles, because within our video we plan to shoot each scene from some different angles and choose the most successful one. Some of the images focus on different body parts, for example the couple holding hands; this emphasises their close and loving relationship and we plan on including this shot within our video. The photos I have taken will help us decide the types of shots to include when creating our storyboard and could also inspire us when we need to think of varied and interesting shots.

Moodboard Presentation

This is a picture of me and Kaylee presenting the moodboard which we created. After the presentation the class and our teacher gave us feedback on our ideas. They felt that it was good because it had many pictures which clearly showed which genre of music and style of video we have chosen, most of the pictures also showed the natural colours of the settings  we will be using. They also felt that the range of shots would be helpful in the future when we go and film because the moodboard includes all of the shots we want to include in our music video so if we need to compose a shot we can look to our moodboard to achieve the best shot. In addition they said that the lyrics and other words that relate to the song / video added extra detail and showed what our film will be about. However we felt that we could have included a wider range of words so we added some more words in the small gaps of the board. Overall we were very happy with our moodboard; it has helped us picture what the end product will be like and it will be very helpful for storyboarding and filming.