Research - Passion Pictures

Today our class had the opportunity to meet Ollie Allgrove who works as an executive producer at Passion Pictures. Passion Pictures is an independent production company established in 1987 with studios in London, Melbourne, Paris, and New York. The studio specializes commercial and animation output and has works with companies such as cartoon network and with music bands such as the Gorillaz. Our guest discussed with us how music video are created within his firm and what are the different jobs and relationships present throughout this process. Additionally Ollie described the jobs and responsibilities of the people engaged within a project.

Ollie began by speaking about the meaning of talent management within the context of creating a music video. The idea behind talent management is the production teams capability to cooperate with the director, actors, musicians, operators, VFX artists and all other individuals within a given project. Successful team management allows for the effective and well-managed creation of a project. One aspect of team management is the representation of a director. Successful team management will lead to the desired representation of a director. In other words a director will be promoted while at the same time being comfortable with the project that he is working on with his team. The director has a lot of responsibility on set as he is in charge of guiding entire team of individuals throughout the process of realizing the project visualization. In other words the director must at the same time be able to be creative/visual while also leading and managing groups of people and the shooting schedule. Another aspect of team management is production. A producer manages the budget, time and schedule, as well as the relations between different clients, companies, studios and such. As our groups idea relies heavily on management of time, equipment, and actors/performers we all take care of this factors as producers within our music video. Furthermore because we are all involved within the creative aspect of our music video our entire group also acts as the directors for the project.

A major factor of producing a music video at Passion Pictures is the accurate representation of a brief and treatment. The purpose of the brief is to describe the concept for a project and then elaborate upon its artist’s background, the intended audience and the mood/nature of the project. After a brief is accepted a treatment is created to represent the overall outline of the project. Similarly to Polygraph Records, a treatment received at Passion Pictures is expected to be a mix of images and text that allow everybody that is to work on the project to visualize clearly what it is being planned to be and what are some of the aspects that potentially require being changed. In other words it is a visual representation that allows others to grasp a better understanding of what their project is and provide feedback if necessary.

By listening to Ollie I was able to grasp a better understanding of what preparations must be made for my groups project to be successful during the shoot and during post production. Our team has agreed that within the next couple of days we will create a storyboard, shot list, and final outline of our project to be well prepared for our shoot. I believe we might even possibly discuss what are our best shooting possibilities to allow the shoot to be efficient and satisfactory. In general I think that our groups project will benefit greatly due to the talk provided to us by the executive producer from Passion Pictures.

Research - Film and Set Lighting

Today our class received a visit from an expert on film and set lighting. Our guest explained to us what are the different types of lights that exist and what types of lights we should consider utilizing for our shoot. By paying close attention to our guest in combination with conducting some personal research I learnt the following. I explored and looked into the following three types of lights. Tungsten lights are lights generally used to lit interior sets, although they may also be used in combination with blue colour correction gels to simulate daylight. Fluorescent light is commonly used to lit interior sets and is highly efficient. In other words it produces a huge amount of light that could be used to represent various types of situations. Led lights are soft lights that produce a single colour of light; therefore they can be used to portray unsaturated events. Some of the following types of light can be used with different gels and bulbs to represent situations are different light temperatures. For instance a bulb that emits colour temperature between 5000k – 6000k kelvin will create an illusion of sunlight. At the same time lower light temperatures will create warmer tones, while higher will create colder tones. Through this obtained information I hope accurately chose the right lightning for the shoot together with the other members of my group.

Target Audience - Mood board

Target Audience - Males 21 to 25

The target audience that our group has decided upon is male individuals from the age of 21to 25. We believe that our concept for a music video would appeal greatest to this audience due to its many distinct characteristics. These characteristics include slow motion, modern scenery, a stunning lead artist, exceptional dancers and video effects. First of all the display of dancing and paint being thrown around in slow motion is a distinctive visual spectacle. We feel that our target audience would especially be amazed by this type of act due to it being filmed in a unique way. Furthermore our target audience is young and explorative meaning they would be intrigued by filming technique and the paint being displayed in slow motion. Continuing our music video would be filmed in contrasting white and black settings with vivid colour being present in the form of paint and costumes. Once again our group agrees that males of this age would be most pleased by this type of artistic setup and other such types of setups. Moving on our target audience consists largely of individuals that dance as a form of entertainment when going out or meeting with other people. Considering this we know that our music video concept will incorporate an astonishing dancer and we therefore feel that our audience will truly appreciate viewing a professional dancer performing at different speeds and in distinctive ways. Additionally our lead artist will be a striking young female that will attract the attention of many men when watching our music video. Therefore our target audience is the perfect fit as in most cases it consists of people that have just about finished puberty and who’s attention will be maintained throughout our music video by viewing our lead artist. In general our concept for a music video possess many qualities that we feel will especially attract the attention of male’s aged 21 to 25.

Target Audience - VALS and Jicnar Scales

Industries and researchers achieve audience segmentation demographically and psychologically by using the VALS and Jicnar scales. An audience is segmented demographically according to significant social criteria such as gender, class race or sexuality. One common demographic approach is associated with the Jicnar scale that takes into account an individual's salary, skill and education. Essentially the scale is divided into categories termed social grades that state the social status and general occupation of the collection. For instance the upper middle-class has Social grade A and its occupations are described as being high managerial, administrative or professional. On a different note the working class is labeled by social grade D and the class members are described as being semi and unskilled manual workers. This type of demographic approach aids the industry in being able to create or market a product that appeals specifically towards a certain audience based on their occupation and social status.

The industry is able to achieve psychographic segmentation through the use of the VALS scale. Psychographic segmentation is conducted through lifestyle profiling. In other words psychographic segmentation combines the psychological profile of the consumer with ideas of how the consumer conducts their life within the general market. The VALS system is a psychographic scale (The Values, Attitudes, and lifestyle classification scheme) that is sorted into a number of distinctive categories based on values, attitudes, and lifestyle. The VALS scale categorizes people into categories such as believers, strivers, makers and strugglers. A believer for instance is a conservative and conventional individual with concrete beliefs based on traditional values. A teenage VALS scale also exists which is most often applied to young audiences. Teenage VALS are segmented into categories such as trendies, puritans, innovators and rebels. A rebel is for instance an individual that wishes to remake the world in his or her own image. By utilizing the Jicnar, VALS and teenage VALS scales the industry is capable of appropriately segmenting their audiences and thus creating media and marketing it in a more effective manner. Although at this point the Jicnar scale is slightly outdated due to its categorization not applying as much to todays society it once did it still in some ways applicable to the general public. Therefore in general both scale systems are effective at aiding the industry and others in the process of audience profiling.

Second Creative Meeting

During our second creative meeting our group was able to clearly establish our idea. We agreed upon three elements. Element one would be the lead singer singing on a white background. Before our lead singer would begin performing on this set she would be hit with black paint in slow motion. I agreed with my group here that this would look appealing and would sure grab the attention of the audience. The second element which we agreed upon will be the lead singer shown on a set of old televisions surrounded by a black background. At first I thought this might not work well with our song and the other elements which we have agreed upon but my group member hav convinced me that if done right it could look interesting and represent a number of ideas supported by the song. Simply I can say that they have won me over. The third element that we agreed upon are three performances displayed by three separate dancers. Each dancer will dance in a different style, altogether the style shown will be hip-hop, break dance, and ballet. Continuing each dancers will be hit with one paint colour which we will decide upon at a later time. After this has occurred within our music video the performers will throw of the paint and begin dancing. Our group agrees that these three elements intertwined correctly will create an appealing music video. Moreover we are all happy with this renovated idea for our music video. In this way we have concluded our second creative meeting and agreed upon a new structure for our project.

Group Treatment - Response To Feedback

In response to the feedback that our group has received yesterday we assigned a task to each member of our group that would allow us to improve upon our concept. I looked into the slow motion and paint within our group’s music video while the two other member of my group looked into all other aspects of the idea. Listed below are the individual responses of our group’s members to the feedback.

Mateusz Pasynkiewicz (Me)

At first I examined in what ways could the slow motion within our concept for a music video be extended upon. I personally feel that by constantly yet gradually changing the speed of the film the paint that will hit the dancer will appear more interesting. Furthermore through this the speed of the film could be matched to fit to the pace of the song and would therefore become more pleasing to watch. Subsequently I thought about the possible camera models that our group could rent to shoot the slow motion sequences. Through this research I came by the phantom camera models that are capable of shooting high quality footage at ultra-low frames rates. In addition to this I looked at possible rental companies and educational facilities that would aid us with understanding how to operate the phantom. Although I think that further research is required in this area as the prices for both rental of the phantom and learning how to operate the phantom that I have found are at the moment to elevated for our budget. Lastly I looked into paints and have found that water soluble paints are the most appropriate to be used with humans. The paints low viscosity and liquid like behavior allow us to easily clean it of and chuck it at our dancer during the shoot. Moreover I thought about extending the usage of paints throughout the video and personally felt that it would become too monotonous to utilize the paint in the same way throughout the video. In general I feel like that the research that I have conducted and some of the personal opinions that I will later on share with my group will allow us to further develop our music video.