Ancillary Tasks

Alongside creating my music video I also have to complete two ancillary tasks. The subsidiary tasks are slightly different depending on whether you choose to do a music video or a short film.

As I am doing a music video I have the choice between these three ancillary tasks:

• A website homepage for the band
• A digipak for the album's release
• A magazine advertisement for the digipack

I have chosen:

• A digipak for the album's release
• A magazine advertisement for the digipack

I have chosen these because I was instantly drawn to creating a digipak as I had never heard of one before and I feel it would be a great concept to create. Therefore I have chosen to do the magazine advertisement as well as that links better with creating the digipak than the website would.

Still To Do

Although I've chosen my song and video style I still have a lot to prepare and take into consideration before I can start my filming.

• Decide on a location
• Organise talent
• Sort out equipment - lighting and cameras
• Camera shots and angles
• Decide on mimed or live
• Decide on which ancillary tasks I am going to do
• Health and Safety - location and filming
• Shooting schedule - what and when
• Photo storyboard

Video Idea

Bizarre as this may sound, I was sat at home watching music videos on YouTube to give me ideas for my own when the Apple advert for the new iPhone 5C came up. The bright colours of the new iPhone 5C reminded me of their 2003 advert for their new iPod at the time.



The advert uses black silhouetted figures dancing against a brightly coloured background, holding a white Apple iPod with white Apple headphones in. I was instantly reminded of why the advert had been so successful and iconic. The use of bright colours instantly draws the viewer in as it is such a vast contrast to the black figures. The idea has been reused in various Apple adverts over the years. Although, in more recent years it has been revamped to have coloured silhouettes against a black background and also more realistic silhouettes.



 I feel the use of bright colours gives the advert a really edgy feel and this is the type of effect I want my video to have. Therefore, I am planning on recreating this by using coloured lights in my video, consequently turning my talent into black silhouettes. 

Music Video Directors - Huse Monfaradi

Huse Monfaradi is a British producer who has produced videos for artists including Arctic Monkeys, Snow Patrol and Noah & The Whale.

His infamous video for Eric Prydz Call On Me resulted in him winning The People's Choice Award CADS in 2005 and it was also voted in the Top 50 Videos Of All Time by MTV.

He recorded two acclaimed videos for Arctic Monkeys including I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor in 2005 and Brianstorm in 2007.



His video for I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor was nominated for the Best Rock Video Category CADS in 2006.



Both videos follow a performance layout, which allow the viewer to feel like they are a part of the video itself.

Branding of Music Videos and Arctic Monkeys

In order for a music video to become successful it has to be well branded in a number of different ways.
The majority of videos have a two week lead up period to its release. In these two weeks the band or artist will upload stills from the video to social networking sites, enabling them to be spread around globally before the video is even released. 

When it gets closer to the date they will upload 20-30 second snippets from the video to increase interest. 
Promoters will also pay to have their video advertised underneath other artists videos on sites such as YouTube.

Arctic Monkeys are the Britain's biggest band with 638,791 Twitter followers (29/10/13), and lead singer Alex Turner being worth around £14,000,000.

They are branded and advertised in a variety of different ways, all of which help add to their success. 

They are featured heavily in specialist music magazines such as NME and Q, which fit with Arctic Monkeys indie rock genre and will help advertise them to the public.

This year has seen NME release 3 special collectors edition Arctic Monkeys issues, filled with interviews, posters and general information about the band. Having a whole magazine edition about them brands them incredibly well as afterwards people will be more interested in going and watching their videos, buying their new album and getting into their music more.

In July of this year they headlined Glastonbury festival, one of the biggest achievements for any British band or artist. It instantly increased their fan base, meaning more people will watch their videos and be excited for their new releases.

Finally they make use of interviews. They are interviewed by a variety of channels and shows, including BBC Radio One and BBC One Breakfast. The mix of Radio and TV will appeal to different groups of people and therefore broaden their fan base. They have more interviews in the lead up to a new release which builds up the hype already around it, making it even more exciting for old and new fans.

Research Methods

In order to create a successful music video I need to do some research into what would appeal to my chosen target audience and background research into my genre, branding and directors.
Research is split into two different types; primary and secondary. 

Primary research is research that you do yourself. For example:

• questionnaire
• survey
• interview
• focus group
• phone call
• email
• letter 
• textual analysis

Secondary research is research which you collate from someone else, such as: 

• books
• internet
• search engines
• industry websites
• websites by individuals
• newspapers, magazines
• journals

These can then be split into a further two data groups; quantitative and qualitative. 

Quantitative data is to do with numbers and looking for certain patterns or trends in people's responses. Examples of these are questionnaires or surveys. This type of data tends to use closed questions as it is then easier for the researcher to compare their target audience's answers.

Qualitative data is to do with opinions, words and feelings in people's responses which can be retrieved from methods such as the information you would collect from a focus group. This type of data prefers to use open-ended questions in order to get as much detail as possible within the answers. The researcher can then use the answers in more depth.

Although some of these research methods will be beneficial for me, the rest will be inappropriate for creating a music video. For example, secondary research is going to be the most beneficial for me in terms of finding out about directors and the genre history. Primary research such as questionnaires could be useful in finding out opinions on my video but would not help me in finding out the key information I need to know about my genre. Therefore, secondary research will be the research type I use most frequently.

Chosen Video Style

My chosen video style is performance. This is due to the fact that I find them the most appealing videos to watch as you feel like a part of the action and involved with the song. I feel that a performance video would work best with my chosen song as it is quite an energetic song and so I can make it very attractive to the audience.

My favourite performance video is I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor by Arctic Monkeys. It's simple yet effective and  I'm instantly drawn into it by the energy of the band, something I would like my band to recreate in my own video. The video focuses purely on the music and the artists, which is incredibly significant in a performance video. The constant close-ups of the lead singer ensures that the audience's attention is focused on him and the band's music.



I researched into older performance videos as well to see if I got any ideas of inspiration from them. "Killer Queen" by Queen is performed to an audience but they show up to the cameras for the people watching at home, as they do in Don Broco's video. The use of lights at the event in this video instantly appeals to the watcher as they are bright and so this is definitely something that I want to include in mine.