Planning: Pitch & Narrative Structure

Track:
"Footprints and Tyremarks" by Captain Cortez's Mandolin


Locations:

Woods - Smockmill Common

Beach - Winterton Beach

Field - Tharston

Car - Artist's own van

Home - My House

Costume
Fairtrade clothing - bamboo fabric shirt. Ethical & Natural Brown & grey coloured clothing - Natural colours.


Performer
Actual artist throughout whole video


Props/Objects
Guitar
Car Keys
Kettle & Tea (cultural signifier)


Generic Signifiers
Idea of Travel
'Lonely' Performance Element
Acoustic Guitar
Rural Locations


Texts Which Inform Ideas
Frank Turner - "If Ever I Stray"
Ben Howard - "The Wolves"
Mumford & Sons - "The Cave"
Ron Pope - "Atlanta"
Laura Marling - "Rambling Man"


Narrative Structure
As the lyrics of the song contain strong links to travel and the idea of not feeling at home, I have created a narrative that is clearly relevant to these two themes. The music video begins with the artist loading a suitcase and guitar into the back of a van. As the artist visits each location, he explores the area, and plays the track. This is to show how he is trying to find a place where he feels comfortable and at home, yet none of the places he is visiting are providing that. The fact that he plays the song with no audience or other people around adds to his feeling of alienation as he is shown as a lonely character. To link these locations together, the artist is shown driving in a car; this adds to the theme of travel. The music video ends on the artist dropping his keys onto a kitchen table, suggesting that he has finally found a place where he feels comfortable.

Planning: Editing Order

I have made a plan for the order in which I am going to edit my music video. I have set it out into chapters, and which location I am going to use for each "chapter".

Chapter 1
Tea scene – dissolves to...
Car – loading things into boot
Beginning of journey

Chapter 2
Arriving at woodland
Sitting on tree stump
walking across tree trunks (slow motion?)
All cut between dissolves of full song run-through & plant cutaways

Chapter 3
Back into car – more journey makes link between locations
Travelling – possible use of mirror shots?

Chapter 4
Field location
Following shots, steadycam.
Cut between dissolves of full dong run-through & wheat cutaways

Chapter 5
More car travel shots – link between location
Possible use of shots of keys

Chapter 6
Beach scene – sea scape – full song run-through
Cut between dissolves of sea plants & shots of waves
Over shoulder shot of waves

Chapter 7
Quick cuts & dissolves to each of the locations
End – dropping keys on kitchen table

Planning: Moodboard

Music Video Moodboard from georgiairving

Location
A generic convention for folk genre music videos is rural locations, for example the beach location in both Frank Turner's "If Ever I Stray" and Ron Pope's "Atlanta", or the building ruins in Ben Howard's "The Wolves". I plan on using a beach scene in my own music video not only to reference these music videos but to also link to the photography of Hiroshi Sugimoto - "Mystery of mysteries, water and air are right there before us in the sea. Every time I view the sea, I feel a calming sense of security, as if visiting my ancestral home; I embark on a voyage of seeing." The idea behind Sugimoto's photography of seascapes links to the feeling behind my track as it is about finding the place where you feel most comfortable - your "ancestral home". I also have included an image of a van, as use of this within my music video will make direct reference to the song title, "Footprints and Tyremarks".

Costume
As the folk genre is associated with achieving fair treatment of people, as Bob Dylan reinforced with songs such as "Chimes of Freedom", I have chosen to place my artist in entirely fair trade and organic clothing. I have selected clothing from the high street store "Fat Face" as the audience for this brand would be similar to that of my music video. This brand has strong links to both ethical trading and outdoor activities, making it an ideal brand to associate with my video. I shall carry out more research into the links between my audience and the audience for this store in a later post.

Genre
I have selected several images which reminded me of the folk genre. For example, acoustic guitars, accordions and harmonicas are all instruments which have been played within both Frank Turner and Bob Dylan's music. I also found an image of the Cambridge Folk Festival logo, as I feel further research into this would be beneficial when carrying out audience research.

Similar Artists/Inspirations
I asked my artist who his main inspirations had been, and he stated that Frank Turner was his main inspiration as not only does he write political based songs, but also more personal songs which my artist could relate to. He also mentioned a band called Bright Eyes, who write very poetic lyrics, paired with finger-picked acoustic guitar and occasionally harmonica. Another artist he spoke of is Ben Marwood, due to his lyrics being personal to his own life experiences.