Update

Since pitching my idea to the class, I have been conducting a loose, impartial questionnaire, the purpose of which is to highlight anything I might not have yet considered for my music video, and also to potentially give me some totally new ideas. I have asked both men and women of a variety of ages. The questions are as follows: 

What would you expect to see in a music video?

Do you have a favourite music video? And if so, why?

With the narrative taken into consideration, how might you expect to see alienation/frustration/suburbia represented in my video?

I understand that these are fairly broad questions, but that was the idea, as the purpose of my questionnaire was to provoke discussion rather than to get short, sharp answers. From conducting the questionnaire, I have learnt that an audience feels that there are certain conventions that they expect to be met within a music video; the basic premise of lip-syncing being included in there somewhere, for instance. However, I have also learnt that it is important for conventions to be challenged, and for an audience to be surprised; this is what would make for the most entertaining and memorable music videos. I feel as though I am currently hitting both of these criteria with my music video idea, but that there is still scope to include more surprising and unconventional elements - the challenge will be to assure that the video remains consistent and not too farfetched that it seems slightly inappropriate, or not serious.

Music Video Pitch

This is the presentation I gave to the rest of the class where I pitched my idea for my music video. As a result of the feedback I received, I have decided that the next step I will take in this process is to crowd-source further ideas for the music video by conducting a loose, impartial questionnaire. I will put forward themes from the video and even just words that relate to it, such as alienation and suburbia, to find out what first springs to mind with people in my target audience. The hope is that this will bring to light some new ideas for me to include in my video that hadn't occurred to me, as that way I can guarantee that my video will appeal in some way to members of my target audience. After I have done this, I will begin storyboarding to decide on the structure of my video. 

Pavement - Shady Lane: Video Pitch

Reach for the Stars Lip-Syncing Exercise

As a class, we undertook a lip-syncing exercise in order to familiarise ourselves with this technique for when it came to shooting our own music videos. Due to a few unforeseen absences of various members of the class, we didn't have time to film the entire music video, so we decided to just use what we managed to film in one lesson. In editing, we had to speed up various parts of the footage accordingly, and trim other parts, in order to assure that everything was correctly in time with the music. For this exercise, we were required to lip sync along to the song as it played from an external source and then mute the footage. This allowed us to be perfectly in time, and was a useful thing to practise as it is the technique that we will be employing when we shoot our music videos.

Textual Analysis of Music TV Logos

Kerrang! TV

Given that Kerrang!'s logo is written using block capitals, a 'smashed' effect and actually has an exclamation mark, I think it's fair to assume that Kerrang! magazine's music video television channel, Kerrang! TV focuses on broadcasting loud, distorted sub-genres of rock music. The TV station's playlist mainly consists of nu-metal and pop punk/skate punk, but with some unusual exceptions such as Limp Bizkit, who receive higher-than-average play rates, due to large numbers of text requests.The logo seems to suggest that the channel is aimed at an audience of any age that enjoys loud, distorted and provocative music, given that it employs the sort of aesthetic that can commonly be found within various platforms of that style of music.

Tiny Pop

Tiny Pop's logo is very brightly coloured and features a purposefully scruffy, handwritten-type font, both of which contribute to the playful, innocent nature of this logo. I was reminded of balloons or even Smarties by the circular shapes incorporated in the logo, both of which are things associated almost exclusively with children. From this, I assume that Tiny Pop broadcasts pop music with the intent of their channel being viewed by young children, presumably under the age of seven. After research, I discovered that Tiny Pop is a channel that broadcasts cartoons and pop music videos on Sky and Freesat, and that its target audience is children aged from four to six. Given that I made these assumptions almost exactly, I think that this logo is serving its purpose perfectly.

Magic

Magic's logo looks very sleek and neat, featuring bright, eye-catching, but not necessarily 'loud' colours. The font reminded me of an old, American-style diner and the shape itself looks a little like a neat fingernail, giving an overall 'retro' impression. From this, I assume that magic plays music from years gone by, and after research I discovered that Magic focuses on easy listening music from the 80s, 90s and 00s.

Given that Scuzz's logo employs a metallic colour, I would naturally assume that Scuzz airs rock and metal music. This is also implied by the stylised S and second Z, which have sharp corners, implying hard, possibly industrial-esque music. Scuzz defines itself as a rock channel broadcasting mainstream rock, pop-punk and metal, but particularly specialising in the hardcore and metal core genres. As this is the case, I would conclude that Scuzz's logo is effectively serving its purpose.