10/12/2010

As soon as our groups were decided, we assigned the roles of producer, director, designer, and technical. We decided to assign them to compliment our strengths or areas that we wanted to improve upon and enjoyed.

Producer: Bethany Wilkins

Director: Sarah Matthews

Designer: Helen Pearman

Technical (Camera and Editor): me

I decided to be the role of technical because in the preliminary task I really enjoyed editing and I was really pleased with the end result. I feel that I’ve got the hang of the editing software, Premiere, and hope to use my musical skills to cut to the beat. Although I haven’t used much of the camera before, the director will be there to aid me with my shots and tell me how she wants them. Our class also took part in a lighting workshop to learn how to properly use lighting and how to create different moods. I feel quite confident with using these skills now and hope to attain my lighting certificate, so we can use the professional equipment in our main task.

When our group was assigned the band ‘The Vees’, we immediately researched the band using the internet. We came across their website and facebook page, where we saw that they were a cover band for bands such as Snow Patrol, Elbow, Blink 182 and The Beatles. These bands, as we discussed, have very different styles, so we really needed to meet the band in order to discover their image and how they wanted to be portrayed.

We each came up with questions, individually to ask a band member, when they came into school to meet us. Here were my questions:

1)      Is there a lead member of the band? Would it be okay to give them more screen time than the rest of the band?

From looking at other band’s videos such as Snow Patrol and Coldplay, I discovered that there was a prominent band member in their videos and this is the main band member that the audience recognises and has the most screen time. As the band are clients I thought it would be appropriate to ask them whether they’d be happy for us to give the lead member more screen time than the rest of the band.

When we met the guitarist, Tim, he said that with out a doubt, Wolfie, the lead singer would be the best person to have as the lead member of the band and to have the most screen time because he is confident.

2)      How would you like each band member to be portrayed?

As we’ve seen through bands such as Take That, it is important that each band member has their own style and individuality and that that comes across in the video that we make for them.

The general answer to this question was mainly fun and good musicians that appeal to their target audience. Tim said that they were a casual band and quite energetic so wanted the video to reflect their personality as a whole. 

3)      What genre is your band?

It was important to know this because rock music videos are very different to pop or rap videos and we needed to keep the style of the video in correlation with the genre.

Tim said that because they were a cover band it was difficult to state one particular genre. However, the song that we're going to be making the music video for is one that Keith has written, to which the genre is classical rock, a song that is similar to something that Daughtry and Bon Jovi would write, so I'm going to do some research into them in the future. 

4)      Where do you perform most? Would you like this setting to be portrayed in the music video?

As The Vees are a performing band, it was important to know where they performed most, because this would enable us to find out more about their style. And because the music video is their first music video and is a promotional one, I thought it was important to ask them whether they wanted that setting in the video to show people where they feel more comfortable playing.

The band mostly play in pubs and this setting is where they definitely feel most comfortable. They also play at weddings, however, they much prefer playing at pubs because it is more enjoyable and at the end of the day that's why they formed the band- to have fun.

5)      Who is your target audience?

This is, perhaps, the most important question, in my opinion, because with out it, we don’t have an age range to aim for, so we wouldn’t know how to style them, how to put the video together and what to include in the video to appeal to who they want to perform for.

As the band perform in pubs it seemed logical that their target audience was 18-60+, so it's quite a wide age range to go with.

We are now researching different bands that are similar to the genre of The Vees. I am researching Snow Patrol in terms of genre, but will also be looking at other bands to see the technical aspect of the video to help me when editing and filming.