Developing My Ideas

For part of the research and development stage of production we needed to think of a possible song and then think of a treatment for it. We were sent away over summer to think of a minimum of 3 ideas for a potential pop video. This was nowhere near as simple as it sounds as we couldn’t just do songs which we liked; we needed to think about target audiences. So we studied the JICTAR model to try and establish which group our video and song would appeal to. We had to think about occupation, education, wealth and percentage of population in order to target the largest possible audience. To get a bit of inspiration I looked at previous Hurtwood House pop videos and thought about their thinking behind why they chose that song and that treatment. Who were they trying to target? Why had they chosen that song over any others?



I went away and thought of some on trend, current songs which were being received well. The 3 songs I chose were all quite different in who they were trying to target. The first song was from duo Chase & Status who are currently being received very well by teenagers all over the well. The song is called “Let You Go” and features some quite strong lyrics such as “Wherever you are, I will track you down”. The second song I chose is by indie band called Bombay Bicycle Club; I chose them as “festival” music is a very hot topic at the moment. With such a huge range of people were festival-goers I thought this would be a good group to target, the song is called “Ivy and Gold” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV4B4Y6Cr28 and it is quite a happy song with fairly simple lyrics. The third and final song is by an artist named Darwin Deez, who is a very alternative kind of indie figure. He is pretty undiscovered, which would make him instantly popular and he has a very individual style. The song is called “Up In The Clouds” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBfK73KdPPs and the lyrics are about a man letting his partner down.



The treatments for these sons are all very different and all feature various messages. The first video, for the song Let You Go would feature a domestic violence themed video. The video wouldn’t have a performance element as there are no real instruments to be played. The video would feature a man trashing up a room whilst his partner is close up to the camera crying with make up streaming down her face. The video would show establishing shots of the house where all this is taking place and extreme close ups on broken object such as glass, or guitars. The second video, for the song Ivy and Gold would a “tea party” scene in which each member of the band would be sitting around a long table, possibly in a wood whilst they all drank out of huge mugs of tea and laughed joked around. This video would need to include a performance element to help sell the band on their debut single. The band could either be playing inside a studio or they could be playing inside woods or a forest. I believe this would fit very well with the song as the song has an upbeat tempo and happy lyrics.

The third and final video, Up In The Clouds would feature the band (which would only be maximum 4 people) in a scrap yard smashing up cars and having fun. This would be made more interesting by the se of slow motion throughout the wrecking of cars and various other objects. This video would include a performance element, this would be each member of the band standing on top of cars in the scrapyard performing the song. Alternatively they could be in a studio with a clean white background with dry ice. I chose this scrap yard smash up to contrast the song as it is a very calm and serene song I believe it would look really effective.



I pitched each idea to my group, trying to sell each of them in their own right. The group was fairly keen on the last idea of the scrap yard video. They said that it would look very dramatic and would be an interesting video to watch. I also played them the song and they really liked it, they agreed with me that the aggressive video would contrast well with the song lyrics and video. One member of the group advised me to watch a video by Justice called “Stress” which featured a similar scene. We spoke to our class teacher who also liked the idea and suggested we present it to the head of media at our school to see which he preferred. There are 3 of us presenting our ideas to him in our group.