Preparation for the Pitch...

Our PowerPoint Presentation:

As posted previously, each member of the group has now researched their assigned area and put their own notes onto the group's presentation. We plan to discuss our own findings throughout the pitch, individually, and then come together as group towards the end to present our proposal for the video's main concept.

Here is the finished PowerPoint presentation, all that needs to be completed now for the pitch is our individual work. As I have been assigned the area of: genre, this shall include producing various mood boards, research into the genre of: Piano Rock, lists of possible other bands we may take inspiration from and a detailed analysis of the common codes and conventions found in Piano Rock texts.



This is what will be shown on the board whilst we are delivering our pitch:
In control of switching the slides is Alex Wood and both Mr. White and Mr. Palmer shall have handouts displaying the same information for closer reference.



For our Advanced Media Production, we have opted to construct a music video: Vanessa Carlton's 'A Thousand Miles.' We plan to incorporate a black, white and red colour scheme shown through costumes, make-up ect.

 

Having already established a Gothic house style within the group, we shall use this throughout not only the music video but also the ancillary tasks in order to maintain continuity.

 

The ancillary tasks we have chosen to design and create are: T-Shirts, calendars, concert tickets, a website, album covers and various posters including tour & album advertisement.



Our target audience is: young adult women, aiming towards those stereotypical 'lovey-dovey' girls within this demographic. This is to be conveyed through the use of the main character's (Melissa Randall) fashionable costumes, dark Gothic make-up and relatable locations.



Vanessa Lee Carlton, born on 16th August 1980, is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. Her ancestry is of half Scandinavian and half Russian decent. She attended the Professional Children's School in New York City, however aged eighteen, she decided to focus on piano-playing and song-writing and attended Columbia University, performing in clubs and bars across Manhattan before being offered a record deal.



'A Thousand Miles', originally entitled: 'Interlude', was written by Vanessa Carlton herself and recorded for her 2002 debut album: 'Be Not Nobody.' It was co-produced and co-arranged by Carlton and Ron Fair and was released as the album's first single. Now her signature song, it became Carlton's breakthrough hit and one of the most popular songs of the year.



Whilst listening to ‘A Thousand Miles’ as a group, we analysed every aspect of the song and created mood boards consisting of our initial ideas through the medium of images. It is clear from their appearance which consists largely of red and black images that our video ought to portray both passion and depression, which are coincidentally perfect themes for our storyline. The images of both red roses and black lilies lead to the possible idea of integrating an army theme, merging it into the storyline in some way. This idea is still yet to be fully developed as there are a few issues with it, but if (as a group) we decided to pursue it as our main storyline then I’m sure it’ll work- somehow!



It is important for us to construct, within the music video, the motion of time which we hope to present through our choice of locations. Due to the concept of the video and the lyrics in the song (it was decided within the group to take the lyrics literally rather than metaphorically) we have chosen fairly everyday locations such as the woods, parks and busy streets. We did this in the hope that they would appeal to our demographic.



Both our storyboard and mood boards show in great detail the costumes that both Melissa (the main female character) and Richard (the main male character) will be wearing. However Melissa will be wearing a series of costumes throughout the video whereas Richard will more than likely stick to just the one. This avoids unnecessary hassle whilst filming and confusion for the audience as they may struggle to associate him with a British Army soldier.

Spread across a wide variety of media platforms, we plan to construct the following ancillary tasks: posters, billboards, a website, calendars, concert tickets, t-shirts and CD covers. I have been assigned the task of creating ancillary posters. This includes an album and tour advertisement and also a billboard poster. I plan to analyse other existing products and incorporate features such as polysemous titles, large images and bright colours.



 

Again, in order to prevent any time-wasting, we were each assigned our own individual responsibilities. If everyone sticks to the agreed deadline we should be fine!

 

A more detailed production schedule shall be drawn up very soon, but for now, here is a rough draft.

Available for us to use is a wide variety of camera equipment. This includes: the tracking device, tripod, jib, video cameras and the green screen. We plan to use all of this to the best of our ability in order to construct professional camera shots and a music video finished to a high standard.

Lily-May Smythe