Production Logo

Before you begin, you should create a production logo for your work. This production logo will become synonymous with all productions you undertake in the future and create an instant association for your audience members to recognize your work. Strong existing examples are companies such as Disney, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros etc.

Initial Overview

Up until this point you will not have explicitly stated your intentions for this production; this post is where you will outline these. You should highlight what project your are undertaking (e.g. Music Video), the genre, artist/s and any initial ideas you have for production and stylistic decisions. The aim here is to simply state what you hope to achieve, it does not matter if your plan deviates from your initial overview, however you must be mindful of how you have had to change your intentions and why as your project progresses.

Inspirations

In this post you should outline any other Media texts you seek to borrow ideas from. These will primarily be music videos, band artworks and social media feeds similar to the one you intent to create, but it can also include references to other student's work and other moving image texts such as Film. You should highlight which elements you wish to emulate and why you feel these are appropriate and appealing for your own production.

Song Choices

At this point you should list all of the potential songs you are interested in working with. The aim of this post is to reflect on why these songs are appropriate choices, but most importantly decide which of these songs you intend to produce a music video for.

Proposal

Now you have chosen your format, genre, artist and song you should write up a proposal for your intended production. Areas you should discuss are:

• Intended Genre and Codes & Conventions:
  • What genre of music video are you producing and why? Why have you chosen that specific band and song? Which camera and editing techniques do you intend to incorporate into your video? Which rules from Andrew Goodwin's theory do you intend to follow or subvert and why? What sort of content do you intend to include on your social media feed and why? What sort of stylistic intentions do you have for your digipak and why?
• Audience:
  • Who are your target audience? How will you appeal to this demographic? Ideally include some audience theory (click here for theory screencasts) when identifying your target audience. In short you should discuss all of the different things you intend to do in your music video, social media feed and digipak to create appeal for your audience.
• Institution & Distribution
  • Who is your chosen publisher and why? How will you distribute your music video and album? Will you make use of modern digital distribution platforms such as Spotify, iTunes, YouTube etc or embrace traditional forms such as CD and Vinyl (or both). Will you also broadcast your music video and song via other mediums such as television and radio, if so which channels and stations will you target? Which social media feed will you primarily target and why?
• Marketing:
  • How will you promote your album and band? How will all three mediums (Music Video, Digipak and Social Media Feed) form a cohesive promotion package to market your band and their album release?

Proposal Feedback

Ask a peer to review your proposal and give them an opportunity to formulate feedback to assist you in refining your concept. It may be advised to provide them with a series of prompt questions to assist them in discussing key areas you wish them to feed back on. You should document their feedback and then use this to help you refine your finished concept to better appeal to your intended audience.

Video-Board

This is similar to a mood-board but, somewhat unsurprisingly, comprises of video segments. Source a few music videos or other moving image productions that showcase techniques you find appealing. Using Premiere Pro cut together a short, simple montage of those best moments. Do not feel like you have to edit together huge segments of each video, just a few shots from each added together to form a 30 second - 1 minute video would be ideal. Cut the audio layer from the existing clips and layer them with the song you intend to produce a video for.

Equipment Ideas

Now it is time to start to think how you will achieve your intentions. Refer back to your available equipment post and find items that are most suitable for re-producing techniques that you intend to use. Create a post where you identify these items and explain how you intend to use them to create the stylistic themes you wish to achieve. If you are feeling ambitious, it would be visually appealing to create a video layering example footage of the technique, alongside the equipment you intend to use.

Lyric Analysis

Andrew Goodwin states that a music video must relate to or subvert it's lyrical content. In order to help you with this goal you need to understand the semiotics of the lyrics used in your chosen song. Obtain the lyrics and perform a semiotic analysis of them, looking for deeper connotations and signifiers to help you gain a greater insight into your chosen text. This deeper understanding will help inform your decisions in future planning tasks.

Artist Mise-En-Scene

Typically artists either choose a 'look' that embodies their chosen Representation or, in many cases, a music label will guide or instruct artists how to represent themselves in order to generate greater appeal for their target audience. In order for your product to be more believable as a component of a larger concept you should plan out the Mise-En-Scene for your lead artist/band. For this you should address clothing, hair, makeup, common props/accessories, dance routines or iconographic movements/signs and body language.

Location Mise-En-Scene

The locations chosen for your shoots are critical for achieving your intended look and feel for your music video. In this post you should discuss the sort of locations you intend to find and utilize for your shoots. Things to consider are location, surroundings, props, lighting, time of day and weather. Essentially you should describe the sort of locations you wish to find, potentially supplementing these with examples.