Intention/Proposal

After listening to the song and the lyrics, we decide it would be best suited to do a narrative music video.

Our music video would entail the modern world about a young girl trying to get on with her life tackling alcohol and drugs which almost ruined her life before.

We see her trying to battle through; working and living life drug and alcohol free, but her past is haunting her and trying to revert her to her old, messed up self, so we see a good side and evil side of the same girl.

Our storyline plays on the lyrics and I believe it would be interesting for people to watch, as its almost like a 3minute film, also, our target audience could maybe relate to the lyrics as these problems are common in youth these days.

Effect On Our Audience

In our music video we are portraying a lifestyle that many teenagers may undergo, feeling confused and alone as they are growing up. The troubles youths may feel pressured into and how to overcomes them.
Although, our music video shows a troubled, depressed girl involved with drugs doesn't send out a negative message as it illustrates the girl as a bad representation of youths which teenagers tend to what to break. It also shows her as distracted and very unhappy which subliminally send a message saying if you involve yourself with these things you will have an unhappy lifestyle.
As our artist is trying to forget about her previous problems and focus on going to school to pursue her celebrity career is shows that you can overcome the past by becoming attempting to be better person suiting your lifestyle before it affects your future.
So overall, a positive message is being portrayed leaving the audience thinking about how they can create a good lifestyle for themselves by avoiding the bad yet tempting obstacles in life.

Meeting 3

• Looked at the effect we wanted on our audience
• Decided on a storyline
• We did a shot list and draft storyboard
• Decided when to film
• Did a SWOT analysis

Moodboard

I created a mood board of the ideas I associate with this song about the narrative.

The themes presented above; Depression, Addictions, Anger and trying to overcome all of that are what I want to base our music video on and the themes I associate with the lyrics.

The first picture is about the beginning of what we intend to do with the song, showing the depressed lifestyle and the end picture showing portraying a sober, working woman. 

Stages of Production

Pre-Production

- Pre-visualisation (mood board, shot list, animatic etc.)
- Production design (costumes, hair and make-up, locations, props etc.)
- Production manager

Production
- Director
- Cinematography
- Production assistant
- Performance
- On set photographer

Post-Production
- Editing
- Graphic design (digipak and magazine advert)
- Marketing

Permission Letter

Click image to enlarge

P!NK As An Artist

Pink's myspace page - http://www.myspace.com/pinkspage

This video and Pink's myspace page made us really understand and connect with our chosen artist. We saw her natural self and classed her as her punk/rock/thug artist who is very independent and outspoken.

Music Video Choice

Alecia Moore, known more familiarly by her stage name Pink is a singer, musician and actress who began her fame career in early 2000. She started out as more of an R&B artist but it was in 2001 with her pop rock style which rose her to success with the album Missundaztood. 

She has released 5 albums; collaborated with some big stars and has won 2 Grammy Awards, 5 MTV Music Awards and 2 Brit awards, making her a massive success in the music scene and still on going.

Meeting 2

• As we looked more into Pink and changed decided on; Pink - don't let me get me 
• Looked into our artist a bit more
• Looked into ideas for a storyline
• We decided who would take the acting role and who would take the directors role

Music Video Analysis

Stupid Girls - Pink

The establishing shot of a young girl sitting in an ordinary room makes you wonder how an American, glossy music would come of this shot.

A close – up of an angel on the right side of the normal girl as the angel begins to sing the line ‘stupid girls’ and the mid-shot of the devil on the other side of her shows a battle between them exemplifying the lyrics.

As she turns the TV on an over the shoulder shot in high key lighting makes us wonder what we will see. On the screen is a ‘stupid girl’ walking stereotypically this long shot displays her revealing outfit and walk which is also a representation of the lyrics. Making the character walk into the door makes her look even more stupid but the lighting suggests she is an overall happy person.

The shot then goes to the normal girl laughing and the devil side portrayed. This edit links the devil to the stupid girl suggesting there is a possible link and the audience could then discover a likely narrative.

The long shot of a female president and the lyrics at the point; ‘What happened to the dreams of a girl president’ illustrate the view the artist has on America and the effect the country and ideal image have on the girls there. I think Pink believes idols and the situation of body image has had a drastic effect on the young girls there and people like Paris Hilton who she refers to later, are influencing them. As a result every girl is going to be like that and not live to be educationally successful. In this video she shows what she would like young girls to be like, female presidents and to open their eyes. However, as she adds a humours element to the whole situation people wouldn’t take offence.

The female president shot is in a low key lighting which displays it as the opposite of the glossy ‘stupid girls’ lifestyle and less of what young girls aspire to be like nowadays. Contrasting with the next shot of a sexy, female celebrity dancing provocatively with a famous male artist, 50 Cent in a music video, this is more of what the young girls desire to do.

A panning shot of the Chihuahuas is a very stereotypical view of American girls and mocks Paris Hilton in a humorous way, as she is famous for holding her dog, Tinkerbelle in her bag.

Also, the shot of the girl getting a fake tan mocks all the self absorbed girls by exaggerating it and resulting in a very orange skin colour. The character is very happy at this point, laughing at the fact that when girls actually think they look good when they do have an orange, fake tan. The following long shot shows her compared to a ‘stupid girl’ displaying a girl the song is targeted at. 

Pink sends out a very deep meaning in a humorous method and has set a very specific target market, the girls who may be known as ‘stupid girls’. However, people who agree with the message would also enjoy the song. The purpose of the style and editing techniques throughout contrast the ‘angel behaviour’ and the ‘devil behaviour’.

Pink Interview About Stupid Girls

Meeting 1

• We thought of a suitable genre to focus on
• We looked into potential artists and songs, mostly into Pink after looking at the case study.
• We thought about how long our music video was going to be
• We thought about making an abstract video

Treatment

Together we researched into several music videos, the typical conventions of them, how a lot of shots are used and how cutting to the beat is important.

Music Video Conventions
Performative: displaying singer and band
Abstract: little to do with band
Technique: special effecting
Narrative: following a storyline
Thematic: when videos have a similar theme

We liked the idea of an abstract music video or a narrative based video. We knew we had to begin with the track selection and once we did that we planned to create a mood board, target audience profile, record label, screen tests of our possible artist and early ideas brainstorm.



Planning is also a key factor to help keep us organised so the ways we want to have a guide and a clear path to creating our music video is to follow; a timeline, storyboard, shot list, shoot schedule, call sheet and lyric plans.



Keeping in mind music video theories and ensuring we have permission to use the chosen song will effect the content of our music video.
If we decide to go for an abstract style music video, on beat editing would be much more focused on and the shots would have to be almost hypnotizing to really engage the audience.
If we decide to go for the narrative style music video, an interesting, not confusing storyline would be illustrated to grab the attention of the audience.



A key aspect of creating a music video is to absolutely make sure we are targeting the right target audience to engage them and develop a loyalty to the artist where the audience could relate to and follow the artist long term.



In our music video, we plan to use a series of short shots linking together and going back to other scenes to show a continuous theme to ensure the audience have established the storyline or theme of the music video, lyrics and a bit about our artist.

We want to kind of challenge stereotypes of today and typical conventions of a music video in the sense of our chosen artists look, characteristics and costumes but we want to keep the professional factor of using the best lighting and locations possible.

Director Case Study

David Meyers
David is an American music video director, spending over 10years directing music videos for over 200 of the industry's best artists involving; Jay-Z, Kelly Clarkson, Missy Elliot, Britney Spears, Ludacris, Shakira, Aaliyah, Justin Beiber but mainly with Pink on several of her songs.

Many of his music videos have then led the artists to winning Grammy Awards and MTV Music Awards.

He started is career working at studio systems like Paramount and Fox with a degree in Film Production and created his first music video with rap crew 'The Whoridas' which won a MTV Video Music Award for Best Video of the Year in 2003. His career grew rapidly working with major artists to then, in 2008, producing the first 3D music video for Missy Elliot's 'Ching-a-Ling'.

Music Videos - David Meyers

Music video comparison