Meeting The Mill

Today we met Ollie Allgrove, an executive producer from The Mill which is a VFX & Creative Content studio, headquartered in London with three offices in the United States. It is respected for its high-end visual effects, award-winning moving image, design and digital projects for the advertising, games and music industries. In particular, they won the first Academy Award for Best Visual Effects with the movie Gladiator (2000).

They pride themselves on making the impossible possible, describing themselves as:

We were instructed that the first thing to do in order to start the process of producing a music video is to make a promo, finding the right balance between creativity and commerciality. We were told to first of all start with the big idea and find out what the exact moment is when the audience becomes interested - however, this idea has to be achievable in regard to our experience and budget. Once we have a basic plan, a treatment is needed, which should first be comprised up of mostly visual imagery over words and second, able to be summarised in just a couple of sentences. Ollie told us that storyboards were also a very useful tool, and essential to the production process as they enable us to perfectly explain our plan. Ultimately, however, in our music videos we mainly need to make a connection with the artist.

Preparation is of the upmost importance when it comes to our music videos, and if anything, we should be over-organised before the shoot day. Ollie said that for our shoot day to be as successful as possible, we need to set our own rules, keep it simple, make the sure the artist is comfortable and that the performance is nailed - especially as a director has to be able to communicate their ideas - make sure we shoot all of our shots, if anything overshoot it, and have tonnes of footage to then play with during the editing process.

Ollie also showed us a few examples of past videos which The Mill had been responsible for, and informed us that inspiration can, and often should, be taken from pre-existing videos:

Conventions of the indie pop genre

My group and I researched conventions of the indie pop genre in order to see whether our idea conformed to stereotypical portrayals of the genre. To do this, we selected three similar artists to what we want our artist to be like: MØ, Grimes and Lorde - and there divided up homepages, digipaks, websites and target audience amongst ourselves, presenting our research on a co-edited Prezi.

Hannah analysed conventions of videos, Fran analysed conventions of digipaks and homepages, and I researched target audiences. Stereotypically, female artists of this genre have a young-adult target audience (between the ages of 18 and 25) of both genders. They like artists who have an intriguing, unique look and fashionable wardrobe. With music videos, they like shots which show the female artist as empowered, with an air of surreality to the music video. A less complex and more accessible approach is preferred.

Auditioning the girl group

Having arranged to meet with our selected girls, we placed them all together in the film studio to see if they would work well together, as well as to see whether or not they could deliver the kind of intimidating attitude we want. Despite not wearing the type of clothing we'd have them in for the music video, or the correct lighting or location, we are pleased with our casting choice and would like to go ahead with this group in mind as we progress further forward into pre-production. We shot the photographs on Fran's Canon 100D Camera.

Progressing forward, we are going to start planning hair and costume for all five of our actresses and arrange an actual test shoot to see what they all look like on film, to the music. This will likely take place in the next couple of weeks.

Arranging an audition for the 'girl group' and test shoot

Coming back from the weekend, our group is eager to begin casting the girl group (whom will be shooting in the abandoned house in our music video) and so first thing on Monday morning, we went through the school's online register in order to select which girls we liked and thought would look good as part of our video. Ultimately, whoever we cast has to look good alongside our main singer, the lovely Anjuli, and so from the girls we selected we sent them an email inviting them to a quick casting which will take place on Wednesday afternoon; effectively, the purpose of which, is to select the four girls whom look best together alongside Juli. It also to see as to whether or not they can channel the look and vibe that we are looking for.

After emailing the girls whom we wanted to attend our audition, we then emailed the person in charge of our school's filming studio to make sure that we would be able to use both the space and one of the school's cameras during the allotted time.

Addressing issues with the video

Having been told from the get-go by all three - our teacher Phil, the music video specialist Luke and also our class - that our idea struggled to have enough elements and could result in a somewhat lacklustre music video, as a group, we have been desperately trying to think of how we could make our idea more interesting... A third location? More dancers? More costumes? An elaborate set? However, no matter how many ideas we come up with, we just couldn't seem to get the visual theme and video arch to correspond with one another.

Consequently, we decided as a collective to drop the whole 'gangsta' idea as it was causing confusion and didn't gel as well with stereotypical indie pop conventions as we had hoped. However, we did still like the idea of using a derelict building in contrast with a clean, black studio.

Stuck, we decided to once again research actual music videos, this time, strictly of the indie pop genre, and, alike so many times before, stumbled upon danish singer MØ's "Walk This Way". Watching it once again, this time however, playing our own song in place of the actual music to the video, we decided to see if any of the video's elements worked well with our song.

In particular, we all loved this shot of five girls staring intently into the camera, and immediately became inspired to create a 'girl group' of actors to support our lead singer in the separate location - an idea we had already discussed in weeks previous.

Equally, the fact that the entirety of the music video is shot at a sports complex, and yet the separate locations within have just been utterly exhausted, the music video further inspired us to strive for an actual abandoned house to film in rather than just a derelict room, as it would mean that there would be so many more rooms in which we could place the five girls and thus generate a lot more interesting and unique footage - which, given how it would all be shot on the same property, would all fit the same visual theme. Also, with these countless 'small' locations, the need to create a third element becomes unnecessary which saves us worrying about where else we can use.

Immediately moving forward with this new/adapted element in our idea, Hannah contacted her mum about whether or not the abandoned house (soon to be demolished) would actually be feasible as a location we could film in. Her mum said that there are a couple of houses we could possibly use and so the pair of them are going to visit and research the sites next weekend. Before progressing further on with the specific details surrounding the locations and elements, we are going to wait and see as to what the houses look like and confirm the availability and ability to film in one.

Dependant on whether or not the houses suit our needs, we are tempted to move our first element - currently planned to be within the studio - also into one of the rooms within the abandoned house in order to maintain a strict visual theme. However, visiting the studio and taking a couple of photos in exploration, we are also quite tempted to keep our first element within the smoky black studio as the contrast could be quite effective, especially considering the back wall looks somewhat warehouse like and thus could possibly fit with our industrial, derelict visual theme anyway. 

Until we can see what the houses are like, we shan't be able to decide.

Evaluation and progression

During today’s lesson, Phil reaffirmed to the class that every music video has an element that audiences look forward to (often when the beat drops) which caused us to question as to how interesting our idea is as it stands; how can we include our theatrical ribbon idea? Equally, we were also reminded that all elements of the music video can’t have been revealed within the first minute and that some need to be introduced later on in order to keep the music video fresh; will the dancing shots be boring by the end of the three minutes? Also, we were additionally reminded that the music video has to have a specific visual style and video arch throughout; do we even know what ours are?

Hearing all of this again, we decided to properly evaluate what material we think we had:

Thinking about our idea, we thought that maybe our colour palette didn’t really work together, what with the purple/blue lighting of the first set and the juxtaposition of the natural, simple lighting of the second. As such we researched suitable colour schemes for our type of video and decided that the 'gangster' genre often plays with a black and gold colour palette (even seen in Bishop Briggs' official single cover artwork for the song we wish to use)... Playing with this idea, we thought that we could have the first location entirely black, but with our artist in gold, and the second location gold and creamy, with out artist in black. Doing so would mean we could still include our red ribbon idea in the, as of yet, undecided third location, and thus make our whole video arch about the use of colour and introduction of red - made relevant by the song lyric, "When all of this blood has run". However, on further reflection we felt like this destroyed what our video was about and no longer fit the conventions of the indie pop genre, which, ultimately, is the predominant category in which both artist and song fit under.

Confused about in which direction we should progress, as a group we decided to listen to the song's lyrics for more inspiration, reaffirming our understanding that the song was all about truth. We found this idea a very interesting theme to play with, and newly reinvigorated, we progressed onwards from our brief change of heart by discussing our video’s timeline, thinking clearly about each second as to what is going on and as to what the camera is pointing at in order to make sure that our idea does not get stale, repetitive or overused.

Example of the dance

Given how we are planning on having a dance within the first location of our music video, we decided to create a short, 1-minute visual representation of the type of thing we plan the dance to look and feel like:

I did this through timing up Matt Steffanina's Cold Water dance choreography video on Youtube with Bishop Briggs' audio recording of Pray (Empty Gun), and then uploaded it to Vimeo. Whilst the dance will be different in our video, such as both dancers being male, this is a good example of the type of dancing style and choreography we hope to achieve; I have since forward the video on to our two dancers so that they can start practising and choreographing the final two minutes of the song. And once they are fairly comfortable and have something to show us, we will arrange a group test shoot to see how it looks.

Further development of our idea

In today’s lesson we carried on developing our music video idea further, thinking more about a possible third location, as well as other elements to include in order to keep all three minutes of the video interesting. Speaking to our teacher Phil, we made a plan as to what we should research and plan in the next couple of days.

We watched as many music videos of a similar genre as possible, at this point in type discerning it as a mix between indie pop and hip house, in order to get a clearer idea of what we are aiming for, as well as to get some more inspiration as to what else we could include within our video. As part of this research, we also explored past Hurtwood videos in order to see what ideas would actually be feasible or not.

Consequently, we have decided that for our second location, the 'gangsta set', we are now planning to use an actual location rather than another studio, as we think this would make our video far more realistic, engaging and aesthetically pleasing. Plus, with a real setting we feel like our artist will have more to play with and thus generate more interesting footage. We are planning on using an abandoned house for this; but are still working out as to what we want to use for our third location.

Equally, we are now thinking that the drumming figure is no longer needed in our music video as although it provided another element, actual music videos of the same genres don't usually include any instrumental features.

Moodboards for the Music Video

The above moodboard was made by myself, and the below moodboard was made by Hannah.

Researching real music videos

Following on from the feedback we received regarding our music video idea pitch, Fran and I decided to research some existing, real music videos of a similar theme to explore firstly whether or not instruments tended to be included (and thus whether or not we should cut our drummer), but also for some interesting shots and effective, simplistic techniques we could steal for our own idea.

In Kehlani's music video for Gangsta (off the Suicide Squad OST), the opening 'sequence' is a plethora of shots of her lying on a floor of broken glass. This would be a good idea to play with in our second location where there is a very 'gangster' vibe given how we may struggle to create the bed of money we originally intended to, whereas a bed of glass would be a lot easier to achieve. Fran pointed out that glass may be a health and safety issue and so if we experiment with the idea further, we'd have to get some fake glass.

Another effective shot from this music video was of Kehlani sitting on a golden ribbon-type seat with a beautiful, ostentatious painting and lighting behind her. We really liked this shot, but understand that the setting is simply not replicable. However, we may be able to steal this below-shot of our artist lip-syncing upon some suspended fabric platform.

Azealia Banks gives off a very sassy, high-attitude performance in her The Big Big Beat music video which we want for our main artist. We may also take some inspiration from her outfit. The multiple shots of her being silly and sassy and dancing, intercut with lip-syncing is another idea we want to play with.

Thinking about a third location for our music video, we are interested in possibly using an alley way, or industrial/city setting. However, using an outside set may not 'flow' with our first two, studio-based sets.

Rihanna's Needed Me video contains very gangsta memorabilia which we may try to replicate in our second location, such as the money, gun and golden framed picture.

MØ's Kamikaze video contains a panning shot in which she sits on a throne made of gold-painted tyres with animal print detail, as well as other gold coloured items in an abandoned building. The general aesthetic of this shot is something we want to replicate in the second half of our music video.

In MØ's Waste of Time video, the decrepit location with peeling wallpaper is exactly the type of setting we'd like to have for our gangsta location.

Finally, in MØ's Don't Wanna Dance video, the junkyard location is something we could possibly use as our third element. However, alike with the Azealia Bank video, the outside set may not flow with our other two studio shoots.

Having researched these music videos for inspiration, we will definitely play around with some of our finds in the next few weeks to see which are the most effective.

Meeting Polydor Records

On Friday, a couple of video commissioners from Polydor Records, a British record label operating as part of Universal Music Group, a subsidiary of Paris-based media conglomerate Vivendi, came to school to give us a talk on everything that goes into making a music video.

The first thing to note is that Polydor is responsible for some of the best music videos in the business, having worked with A-list artists such as Lana Del Rey, Eminem, Gary Barlow, The 1975, Kendrick Lamar, Lady Gaga, The Rolling Stones, Selena Gomez, Will.I.Am, Madonna, Imagine Dragons and many, many more. Consequently - they know what they're talking about.

Two of the music videos that Polydor records was responsible for making:

Polydor oversee the video process from start to finish. Talking about the process, they said that the artist whom is wanting a music video made will come to them, and some will have an idea about what they want, and some really won't mind. Next, a treatment is made; this brief summarises what the camera would point at in the music video. Polydor showed us a few example treatments

Directors all have a unique style which sets them apart, and when making the treatment, Polydor try and pair directors with artists based on compatibility. The treatment is sent to both parties and should both enjoy the idea (which isn't always the case), then further development continues.

When writing the treatment, it is advised to be as clear, accurate and realistic as possible with lots of visual aids. The best treatments should be able to be worded with a really succinct summary before braking down into detail, with the visual arch of the music video being considered as to keep the viewer interested. A specific colour palette and visual style should be maintained throughout.

Normally, the whole process (from treatment to delivery), takes roughly between 1 and 3 months, with shoot days usually only consisting of a single day. This means that before the shoot day, every single detail has to be planned meticulously with a complete shot list to ensure that everything runs smoothly. Given how the artist is commissioning the music video, it is highly important to keep them happy during the entire process.

For the music video for Jax Jones' House Work, the entire process took only 7 days. However, this was only possible due to the rigorous detail and planning both pre- and post- shoot.

Taking all of the advice given from this talk into mind, when making the final draft of our treatment, I think it is necessary for us to have a really precise (and concise) explanation as to what the camera will be pointing at during our video, aided visually with really effective and explanatory photos, gifs and videos. Our music video should have a really strict and obvious visual theme and colour palette, and before the shoot day, we should have a really meticulously planned shot-list and schedule to assure the day runs smoothly.

Cast confirmation

All four of our cast members have confirmed to being in our music video and so we will be able to get them all practicing ready for some test shoots in the foreseeable future. An important advantage to note about this particular cast and crew is that all seven of us are in the same boarding house so we will be able to practise at night!

Emailing the cast

Immediately after having our music video idea green-lit we emailed our dream-cast in order to try and get them confirmed and committed to our idea before anyone else asks them to be involved with theirs.

Pray (Empty Gun) pitch - green lit!

Today we pitched our idea to Luke, whom previously gave us a talk on the do's and do not's of making a music video. To summarise: the idea was given permission for us to move further forward into development, but there were a number of concerns about a lack of elements and an issue with the setting of the second location looking possibly tacky. (The below audio file is the second half of the pitch. The first half unfortunately didn't manage to get recorded).

• Luke thought the first location was effective with all the smoke and lighting and that given the drummer and dancer elements, alongside the lip-syncing, we had a lot to play with. He didn't, however, rate the speaker and paint idea too highly as a really powerful slow-motion camera would be needed (which would require paid hiring) and would likely not work as effectively as we envision it to.
• The second location, whilst he liked the idea of, he thought could look tacky if it were made as a set within the studio, although, he did enjoy the contrast between the first and second location. Regarding the gangster memorabilia (i.e: the money and weapons), he advised us to make it less obvious but that it was indeed necessary for our artist to have something to do and play with whilst in the room, so agreed that it would be possible. There was concern, however, that this location could get boring but we assured him that we'd keep cutting back to the dancers and drummers from the previous scene.
• The ribbon idea was liked due to its theatrically, but was cited as perhaps not suiting the theme of the music video. He did, however, enjoy our use of colour. 
• There was no issue with the costumes.

Moving forward, we are cautious that we may need to think of a third location (especially in order to tie in our narrative ribbon idea) that is street/New Money/gangsta related - as well as more elements to assure the video isn't boring. However, at the same time, we don't want the video to get cluttered.

In terms of further development, we are going to confirm our casting choices and then begin some test shoots to assure we have made the correct casting decision as well as to see whether or not our ideas work and how we can further adapt them to make them more interesting and unique. We are also going to get some inspiration as to how we can make our video more interesting, and also research some additional locations.

Although we had a back-up idea prepared to pitch, given our first idea being approved of, there was no need to likewise present that and so we have decided to no longer move forward with developing it. All our attention and focus will now be on our Pray (Empty Gun) idea.

Main idea - presentation for Pitch

Above is the presentation outlining our main idea which we will be using as a visual aid during our pitch to Luke tomorrow. Hopefully giving the simplicity of the idea and the detailed planning which we have made, the idea will be green-lit.

From the original idea, to this point, a lot has changed: the dancers are both now male, and the drummer female. Equally, the artist is now a solo artist in her own right, and the third location has been removed. We have also added the additional elements of speakers with paint in slow-motion and a small ribbon sequence.

Talking to our teacher about the idea, he gave us some initial issues which he had - do the dancers fit the theme of the piece or are they not street enough? Is the singer capable of performing to the level we need? However, assuring him that should our idea be green-lit we would address these worries in a number of test shoots - the advantage of our cast and crew being that all seven of us are in the same boarding house and as such can rehearse at night - he agreed that the idea should be possible.

If, however, Luke does not like our idea (for whatever reason) we have also prepared an, albeit slightly less well-planned, back-up idea based off of Hannah's initial idea which Fran and I finalised today in the lesson.

Further development before the pitch

In our second session as a group, I began to write up our first idea as a powerpoint presentation which we will use, alongside visual examples, to pitch to Luke on Thursday in order to be green-lit, whilst Hannah and Fran sorted out our back-up idea (although with myself still present for the discussions and still able to share my opinion).

We have decided to progress forward with Hannah's 'Heaven' idea given the fact that a band provides a strong performance element and the song is highly contrasting to our first idea. The general outline is that there will be two major elements: a studio shoot (featuring the band in a black room with some coloured lights), and an abandoned house/carpark shoot (featuring a male dancer). The video would be very colourful and we are researching the use of powdered paint and coloured grenades to use.

these are Fran's notes from the lesson

However, although we now have a back-up idea, we are counting on our main idea, 'Pray (Empty Gun)' as successfully passing the pitch, and to make matters easier we have already begun asking our cast - all of which have so far said yes.

For the 'Heaven' idea, our studio shoot would consist of a black set, with hanging pieces of coloured paper behind the cast. An idea of what this would look like is seen in James Bay's music video for 'Hold Back the River':

The type of abandoned building we'd like to use can be seen in Alan Walker's 'Faded' music video:

And the type of dancing we'd like in the video is as follows (seen in Flume and Chet Faker's 'Drop the Game'):

Beginning the development process

Today we were sorted into groups, and I was put with Hannah and Fran. Together, as a three, we went through all nine of our ideas and decided upon which were our favourites - putting two forward to further develop as a main and back-up idea.

Unanimously, we decided upon selecting the ‘Pray (Empty Gun)’ as our main idea but decided that the third element needed to be changed. We all liked the memorable images, initial plans for the look of the lead singer and the song itself — although, we did think it wise to cut the song down to 3 minutes instead of 4.

We also thought it prudent to find a way to include the red ribbon idea from the ‘Stabat Mater’ music video plan given its immensely popular approval.

To make the video more interesting, we thought of changing the two dancers to two males (given the fact that this isn’t overtly common) and the drummer to a female (as this is likewise quite rare). Our artist would also now be a solo artist.

In terms of our second plan to further develop, we are initially thinking of Hannah’s ‘Heaven’ idea by Amber Run consisting of a band and an out-side playground element. However, we decided to focus on the main idea for now, and have postponed development of our second idea for our next lesson.

Feedback from the class

Having made three detailed and clear music video ideas, I presented them to my media class in order to get some necessary first feedback. The response was very good, with my class and teacher very supportive of my ideas, offering constructive advice.

Overall, the second and third ideas were the most liked. People generally thought the ‘Stabat Mater’ idea was aesthetically pleasing and ‘visually inspiring’, with the ballerina-ribbon idea being particularly effective. The ‘Pray (Empty Gun)’ idea was also liked given its simplicity, but people were concerned that the idea would fall flat without a capable lead-singer.

The first idea, whilst striking and memorable, would be difficult to execute and is just a bit too complex.

Taking this advice in mind, when put into my group I am going to progress forward mostly with the second and third idea. Given the simplicity (which is enjoyed) of the 'Pray (Empty Gun)' idea, this will probably be my frontrunner and I will do what I can to begin finding the right girl, but I am also eager to further develop and explore the 'Stabat Mater' idea as well.

Luke's lesson on what not/to do in a Music Video

Before starting to present our ideas to one another, my class was visited by a member of the media staff, called Luke, who came to warn us about the do's and do not's of making a music video.

• He firstly said that, for the purpose of our course, the most effective thing to do is to include at least some form of Performance Element, and that this should be filmed first as a sort of safety net, in case we don't manage to successfully film our other music video components. Although, he then added, that music videos with three elements were the most effective as they create a good rhythm between components and keep the viewer interested.
• He warned us that we only have 14 weeks until our entire project needs to be completed, and that on our shoot day, we would only be allowed a maximum of two locations (the studio and one another) for a maximum of 4 hours [not including set-up].
• Narrative elements were good, but shouldn't be overly explicitly related to the song's words.
• The website is absolutely vital to the music campaign (although, he noted, often overlooked) as it is fundamental in creating the star image of our fake artists.
• He also revealed that the best music videos have undergone numerous test shoots.
• Whilst there is no real formula to follow, he admitted, he did say that our ideas must at least be feasible - and that if we have an idea with a social issue involved, we must correctly represent it, having done plenty of research before hand.

Baring this in mind, I am pleased to progress forward and pitch all three of my ideas, as they all contain a performance element, and don't break any of Luke's guidelines.