Initial Response to the Brief

Group Task - Deanna Hammond-Blackburn 9164

                     - Emma Hall 9162

                     - Alex Major 9190

Brief 1

A promotional package for the release of an album to include a music promo video, together with two ancillary tasks: a digipak for the album's release & a magazine advertisement for the digipak.

 

We chose to do this brief as there are more varied avenues to go down to express our creativity with it, and we all felt as though music related more to our lives as young people than something like a documentary. After deciding to do the music video brief, we had to choose a music genre we all felt comfortable with and felt we could explore fully, and then a song to match. We decided upon acoustic soft rock, with some folk and indie influences, as it is quite universal in its appeal and was easy to listen to. We had some difficulty finding songs with no copyright protection with a good quality sound. However finally we agreed upon quite a calm, slow song, which became more upbeat as it went along called 'Silver Light' by House of the Old Boat. This song has quite ambiguous lyrics that were quite poetic and open to interpretation, which means that we can take it in many different directions.

The audience for this genre we feel is quite broad, encompassing ages from 15-28 as a core music video-watching audience, but has the scope to go wider. The audience will be made up of both genders, though we thought it might sway slightly more towards young girls, with boys being interested at an older, more mature age. We want our audiences to be active audiences that have to think about what they are seeing, and not just passively watch an explosion of noise and flashing lights. We feel that modern music videos tend to be more in-your-face, big productions of the Lady Ga Ga variety that try to match the fast pace of modern living. In response to this, we feel that modern audiences sometimes need time to calm and reflect, with a simpler, more subtle video that allows them to relax from their busy lives.

The primary purpose of the music video will be to promote the image of the artist, and encourage sales of the single. To do this, we want to create something that will start people talking about the band, linking in with our secondary purpose of challenging the audience and making them think/reflect. In this way, although we initially considered making a mainly narrative/performance based music video, we are now interested in including some conceptual elements.

The initial themes that we are considering exploring in our video come from looking at similar products and analysing the lyrics. These themes include: legacy and the act of passing something on; the opposition between dark/light and night/day; repetition and cycles of life; warmth of friendship and relationships; the need to never be alone.