Consumption of Music Videos

With the ever-growing modern age, music videos are being consumed at a growing rate. Music tracks are also being streamed more and more each year. In 2015 America streamed roughly 135 billion songs, nearly two times more than 2014. However 75 billion of these streams were with video form, cementing music video's place in the market.

The spectacular rise in the popularity of music-video streaming can be attributed to two factors. First, people simply enjoy the whole experience more than plain audio. Second, they can stream an almost unlimited number of music videos through sites like YouTube without having to dig into their pockets. Even those subscriptions services that do offer music videos, such as Apple’s Apple Music and Jay-Z’s Tidal, might have a tough time competing with free even with exclusive content (Apple has Taylor Swift’s 1989, while Tidal has content from owner/artists including Rihanna).

Regarding our own music video, we hope to upload it to YouTube (like most artists) and hope our audience can consume it there.

Reveiw of Filming

Overall I think the filming went well. We filmed in our respective locations on three different occasions. Firstly we filmed in the abandoned building. The location was perfect for an apocalyptic feel, and emphasised the feel of abandonment. Although it was cold we filmed in under 3 hours, and managed to get the cast to and from the location.

Our next filming day was in Thetford Forrest. This was a considerable time after the first shoot as we had to organise the day through school hours and peoples frees, and also travel. Luckily it worked out well for us as we managed to arrange cars and also a 4 hour slot that everybody could film for. The day went smoothly and we managed to film even though the light began to go later in the day.

Finally our last shoot was in the school basement. This was no doubt the easiest shoot out of the three. Me, Meghan and Charlie managed to film within an hour, mostly because it was on school grounds. We were able to get some old equipment to throw at the wall, along with other props from the basement. Once again this went smoothly, and when re-watched, fit in perfectly with our narrative.

Script: Final

We made no changes:

Final Location

Finally we decided to visit Pontins after attemping to contact the owners of the site. Unfortunately we were sent away by a site manager telling us it was unsafe to enter, even the outsides of the camp.

After attempting to use the holiday camp Pontins in Great Yarmouth, I found out there was an abandoned building close by near the train station.






The dense forest was perfect for our running scenes and also created a sense of mystery throughout the music video. The light was patchy at times but overall it worked well with our narrative and can easily be used in our video, either as raw footage or as an edited version in After Effects.

Vlog #1

This is our first video diary discussing our idea so far and updates on locations and cast. We talk about the issues with our cast and how we are attempting to overcome the situation.

Final Characters and Cast

Whilst we remained with the same characters as initially decided upon, we dramatically changed our casting as we were unable to arrange for actors from Sandra Reynolds. The actor playing the strong willed character is Zoë Desgland. We chose Zoë as, being an A Level drama student, she'd had previous experience performing to an audience and in front of a camera as all of their exams are filmed. She would therefore also have a good critical understanding of her role, and we needed someone who could adapt their characterisation to suit any idiosyncrasies we wanted them to fit in. Thinking of the costume of Zoë's character, we wanted her to wear dark colours, and dress very practically, as this illustrates her determined and "tough" character.

We chose Charlie Frazer to play the role of our intelligent character due to him also having acting experience. He, also, is currently doing a drama A-Level and has recently starred as the leading role in The Maddermarket's George's Marvellous Medicine, therefore he will be used to following a script and direction and will have the versatility needed to play any given role. In the interview, he came across as confident, calm and quite willing which we found very important as we needed him to play the role convincingly under time constraints and the pressure of performing in front of a camera with the rest of the cast as onlookers. In regards to costume for Charlie's character we wanted his clothing to hold connotations of intelligence and be able to convey this in the short frames of time the audience would see him, so we decided in particular that in semiotic terms glasses were a feature we definitely wanted to use.

We then had issues surrounding the casting of the leader, finding it essential to have someone with prior acting experience. The only other drama students in our school other than the afore mentioned Zoë and Charlie, are Abigail Lewis and myself (Meghan Kelly), and because of Abigail having issues with attending filming due to prior commitments with dance, we decided I would have to play the role. However, given I also am doing a drama A-Level, and have experience with LAMDA grades it did mean I would be comfortable performing, and I would undoubtedly have an understanding of the role being part of the creative process. The costume of this character, we wanted to be a middle ground of the two others, with a practical approach to the way they dress, but displaying a lighter side with literally lighter clothing.