Production meetings week 2

In our production meetings this week, we made final decisions on the four main aspects of our project: 

• Audience 
• Record label 
• Track
• Artist

The details of these decisions are in the separate posts below.

First production meeting

In our first meeting we shared and discussed all our individual research and ideas, and started to search for suitable tracks to use. We all agreed that we wanted an upbeat, dancey song.
Originally, we wanted the video to follow a group of friends around London, but after realising this wouldn't be easy to light, or to film in the cold in November, we started to brainstorm ideas that could be filmed in the studio. To help with this, we watched videos for existing dance songs.

A few ideas we came up with after this were:

• Lots of people dancing
• Use of effects such as looping footage, flashing images, etc.
• Powder paint fights
• Still incorporating a group of friends in some way
• Fun performance, not taken too seriously

We ended the meeting agreeing to do our own research and bring ideas to share at the next meeting.

Artist

Our artist consists of a female lead and two male DJs. We chose this as having a mixed group challenges traditional conventions, which means there will be a gap in the market for it. However, the two DJs being male and the singer being female conforms to conventions, so the group will still appeal to audiences.

The image we are trying to create for the female is an aspirational figure who is not overly sexualised. We feel that this type of artist will be attractive to our target audience, which was a main criteria in making our decision. Our influences when deciding this included Aluna Francis (of AlunaGeorge), Katy B and Kiesza. 

Left to right: Aluna Francis, Katy B, Kiesza

The image we decided on for our male DJs is friendly, cool and laid back, which challenges the stereotypical egotism that many male artists present. However, we don't want to differ too much from conventions to maintain a connection with our target audience, and so we have based our DJs on popular DJs such as Disclosure, Flume and Wilkinson.

From left to right: Flume, Wilkinson, Disclosure

Track

We have chosen the MK remix of 'My Head is a Jungle' originally by Wankelmut & Emma Louise 

The original song is 'Jungle' by Emma Louise, which was then remixed by Wankelmut and renamed 'My Head is a Jungle', and this version was then remixed by MK.

We have decided to keep the name of the song the same as it reflects the theme of the video.

This song would be suitable for our music video as the MK remix is fairly unknown, and the genre of the song suits our ideas.

We plan to create what Goodwin would describe as illustrative visuals based on the music, by keeping the editing fat paced to go with the fast tempo of the song and cutting to the beat.

Record Label

Our label will be called Technicity Records: a smaller, dance genre-specific label owned by Universal. We felt that the word 'technicity' has an electronic feel which will represent the dance genre image we are trying to create.

We modelled our record label on the label that owns the original version of 'My Head is a Jungle' - the smaller, genre-specific label Positiva which is owned by EMI, a larger label. Positiva is one of the biggest labels for dance music in the UK, representing many popular artists, including Avicii, Martin Garrix and David Guetta.
By having our own label owned by a larger company, it will allow us to stay dance-specific without having to branch out into other genres to make a profit. Positiva is an example of this. 

Audience

Primary audience: 16-24 year old females. Our artist includes a strong, non-sexualised female lead who can be seen as a role model for this group.

Primary audience

Audience profile:

• teenage girl
• not particularly girly
• likes going out, dancing, partying

Secondary audience: 16-24 year old males. Dance music is particularly popular with both females and males in this age group, and our artist includes two male DJs which could appeal to this audience.

Tertiary audience: fans of the dance music genre, as the style of the music and video should appeal to them. We will also be using festival style imagery in costumes and settings throughout the video, which many dance genre fans will be able to connect with, as dance music festivals are very popular.

Steal-O-Matic

The steal-o-matic is a collection of media texts such as music videos, YouTube videos, gifs, TV shows and films that have influenced and inspired our own music video idea. 

How the videos shown in our steal-o-matic have influenced us:

• Alice in Wonderland: 
• narrative reference to eating cookies - our artist will find and eat a cupcake
• projections of archived footage in the '90s Baby' video - we want to project Alice in Wonderland footage over our artist performing
• scenery - mushrooms, forests
• Powder paint fight: we want our characters to have a fight with powder paint. Originally we wanted to film this in the studio, but as it's too messy we are considering filming this part in Epping forest. Which leads on to...
• Forest party: all our references to forest parties are set at night, but we plan to film during the day as it is safer and easier to light.
• Dancing: we have chosen a dance track, so dancing will be an important element. Our aim is to have fun, bouncy dancing (like the style in the 'Fishing' video) rather than serious or choreographed dancing.
• Female artist: attractive but not sexualised
• Male DJs
• Performance:
• close up of lips (neon, inverted colours)
• projections over artist
• Janelle Monae (stuff happening around the artist)
• Editing: 
• reverse shots
• double exposure/overlaying of videos
• colour changes (e.g. thermal imaging in 'Route 94' video)
• Pinata: we want our artists to be hitting a pinata in one of our scenes
• Mushroom forest/balloons: 
• mushroom made of balloons 
• balloon fight in one scene
• glitter inside balloons

The main ideas we were trying to convey with our steal-o-matic were the shooting and editing techniques we plan to use, but also the visual impression we are going to attempt to create. The constant use of vibrant colours and the fun, upbeat feel of the clips is something we are hoping to recreate with our video. We feel that this will give the video a surreality which will amplify the lyrics "my head is a jungle".