Planning - Location Permission

We have contacted Abney Park requesting permission to film in the woodland and chapel. Below you can see the message Nick sent on behalf of the group.

Hello,

My name is Nick Bor and I'm writing on behalf of my A-Level Media Studies group, as we are interested in using Abney Park as a filming location for our music video project. Besides the general woodland location itself, we would particularly like to film in the chapel, which we think would look great in our music video. We want to start filming sometime next week for a day long shoot, so a quick response will be much appreciated.

Thank you!

Planning - Test Shots of Performer

 
We have decided that Poppy will be the performer in our music video for several reasons. For one, we know she'll be more reliable than someone from outside our group as they wouldn't be committed to our project or necessarily care about the success of it. Poppy also doesn't mind being on camera, which is a plus, and she knows all the lyrics to the song we've chosen. We will be retaining Poppy's real name for the artist as we feel it's a fitting and memorable one. Below you can see a few photos taken of her to act as our test shots (in addition to those taken for our projection practice).

"Starts so soft and sweet and turns them to hunters"

 

"You are the moon that breaks the night for which I have to howl"

"I hunt for you with bloodied feet across the hallowed ground"

Photography by Diana Evans-Baker

Planning - Audience Profile

We have created a profile for an example of a member from our music video's target audience. Above you can see a college comprising of their lifestyle, hobbies, and interests. Below, you can see a more detailed description of our audience member.

• Name: Hannah Welch
• Age: 20
• Ethnicity: English with Italian heritage
• Is studying Fine Art at Greenwich University, resides on Avery Campus in London
• Occupation: works at a bar part-time
• Shops at Sainsbury’s and Iceland
• Travels by train and shuttle bus
• Reads the Evening Standard and Vogue Magazine
• Gadgets she owns include iPhone, iPad and Kindle e-reader
• Hobbies include painting, photography and writing poetry
• Favourite brand: Converse
• Shops for clothes at Topshop
• Favourite beverages: Pimm's and Starbucks Vanilla Latte
• Would love to go on holiday to Thailand and Tokyo
• The genre of music that our artist falls under appeals to Hannah as she feels she can relate to our artist's positive portrayal of women and enjoys music that has meaningful lyrics
• Hannah can be classed as a succeeder as her parents have a substantial amount of money, but she has no desire for status symbols. She is independent and knows what she wants to do with her life.

Planning - Animatic

Above you can see the animatic we produced, consisting of a mixture of our storyboard sketches done by Poppy and photographs taken with a toy figure. We tried to reflect the kind of cuts we would use for our music video by keeping the shots in time with the track, and used images from our chosen locations in the background.

Planning - Original Artist's Website

Today I will be looking at the artist of our chosen song's website, which you can see here.

As soon as we access the site, we are taken to a landing page designed to promote Florence and the Machine's upcoming album, Ceremonials. As a fan of this artist, I am quite familiar with the website, and so when I visited the site today I instantly noticed that the design had changed. The embedded video of her new single (Shake It Out), the dark background coupled with an image of Florence Welch taking up half of the page, and the title showing the album name all tell me that Florence has a new album coming out, and so the website has been redesigned to reflect a new era for her music.

Landing page

The aforementioned elements of this landing page are all important. The large image of Florence has been designed to give the visitor a face behind the music. An image from a recent photo shoot has been used (i.e. not an old image used to promote her debut album, Lungs) which is significant as returning fans wouldn't want to see the same old photos. The new image portrays Welch in a relatively new style to represent the new album and that it is a development from her previous release. This is clear as the artwork for her upcoming album uses this same image. This repetition isn't a coincidence - it's so that the public are able to recognise Florence, whether it's seeing her CD on a shelf in a music store (or the cover art in a digital music store such as iTunes) or advertising such as billboards, flyers, etc.

Repetition of artist imagery

Another important aspect is the embedded music video for her new single. This acts as a starting point for visitors that aren't necessarily fans to get a taste of her music. The fact that this is the lead single of her upcoming album is important as it has been chosen specifically to promote the new record. The music video backs it up, and by viewing it you can tell that it fits in with the overall dark yet classy theme of the site. Below the music video, there are four different links that enable you to pre-order Ceremonials - two from iTunes (standard and deluxe editions), one from Amazon and the other from the 'Flotique' (i.e. Florence' online store), the latter of which advertises the fact that a limited edition poster is available alongside the physical CD. This is to entice the purchaser into ordering a slightly more expensive copy straight from the site, and rewarding them with a 'limited edition' bonus.

Finally, an announcement stating that an 'exclusive album launch show' (in capital letters) will take place soon, for which tickets will be available, is also shown. This one-off  gig ("the only chance to see Florence in the UK this year") again acts as promotion for the new album.

Homepage

Once we navigate to the main site, we are greeted with the previous image of
Florence again (more repetition), the latest

"What the Water Gave Me"

news and blog posts regarding the artist, and another embedded music video at the bottom of the page. The latter is interesting as it is set to auto-play as soon as you load the site. The song in question is What the Water Gave Me, which is a promo single from the new album. Also on the page is a Twitter feed from Forence herself, which is significant as use of social media has pretty much become a requirement of musicians in this day and age. This allows artists to easily communicate with fans, and is a great promotional tool.

A couple of Welch's latest messages to fans, illustrating the marketing potential of social media. These 'tweets', which respectively invites fans to watch her new music video and buy the single from iTunes, appeared in over 80,000 people's Twitter feeds (at time of writing, she has 86,109 'followers').

Underneath the Twitter feed is a 'Featured Items' section promoting Florence's official merchandise - artists are increasingly relying on selling products besides music (along with tickets to see the artist live) to earn revenue due to the rise of music piracy.

Several links are present on the homepage, including separate pages for the latest news concerning Florence and the Machine and blog posts from Welch. There is also an 'about' page, detailing Florence as a performer and artist, her music, and everything in between. A 'media' page is present, which contains information regarding Florence's music releases and where they are available for purchase. Video and gallery pages serve as visual entertainment for the visitors, whilst the link labelled as 'live' leads to a list of upcoming gigs that fans can buy tickets for. In addition, a forum is available which encourages fans to actively engage with other fans, forming a community around the discussion of all things Florence.

The website hierarchy, so-to-speak, has been thought out very carefully. The opening page is specifically designed to promote the artist's latest album, single, and gig, whilst the homepage is a bit more general yet still concentrating on the new album. The links then acts as a gateway for older releases, information, etc, with these pages keeping the 'old' theme that represents the Lungs (debut album) era.

A yet-to-be redesigned section of the website

It is fair to say that this site uses multimedia very well, with the media players alone serving as engaging features. On every link from the homepage there is a music player that auto-plays music from Florence's first album. On the landing and home page there are songs from her new album in the form of music videos. Thus, you can play the artist's tracks from virtually every page of the website, which is really clever as it is exposing the visitor to their music as much as possible during their visit.

On the video page, an embedded player is present that allows the visitor to also view all of Florence's music videos, in addition to footage of live performances, "in the studio" features, and short films narrated by Welch herself. Whilst Florence and the Machine are technically a band, it is clear that emphasis is placed on Florence as the performer and image of the band. It is also evident that their website is a successful one that acts as a hub of latest information and media, which is bound to keep new fans exploring for more than just a couple of minutes.