Initial Response to the Brief by Lucy Barker and Maddy Ryder

Music Video Brief

A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a promo video together with 2 ancillary tasks: a digipack for the albums release and a magazine advertisement for a digipack. 

We chose this brief because we know more about music videos and watch them regularly and find the idea of directing one really exciting.

Initial Ideas: 

The song we have chosen is called ‘Common Ground’ and it is a singer/song writer / indie  genre and the lyrics concentrates on the issue of materialism and increased importance of social standings. This song is copyright free because when have produced the music video we're going to publish it on youtube.com for audience feedback, we will also use it in pre-production when surveying our target audience so the results are more affective. We chose this song because we both like the genre of music and the message behind the lyrics, we hope that using signs and signifiers we can make the message clear through the music video. We found it very difficult to find a copy right free song that we liked but we would rather not break the law.

A concept based music video with bits of performative clips. Initially we wanted to aim it at teenagers between 16-18, a niche audience because they need to be able to look at the music video and understand the message, but then because of the concept we thought it would also stand out to adults who also release the issue of materialism. The purpose of making the music video is to get across the message that consumerism and materialism are becoming an issue but also to entertain. 

The video will also contain narrative and performative elements, as this is a widely used convention for the singer/songwriter and Indie genres, although we also aim to challenge stereotypes through our use of imagery - our music video will feature a non-typical teenage girl who is less focused on appearance and materialism, providing a deeper, more meaningful role model. We aim to challenge the modern music video conventions, which often display females in a voyeuristic and sometimes exploitative manner.


A few ideas we have include having the artist walk her dog, and walking past 2 made up people dressed up and walking stuffed dogs which fits with the verse:

Those little doggies
Look like terriers
Wear only nice clothes,
They look quite snobby,
Why would they need it,
They only care for a bone

This shows how fake materialism is and makes you look, pointing it out and making a point that it's odd. 

The song has elements of both indie and of singer/songwriter. Therefore we will research music videos that fit this genre. We think it will fit in with Abercrombie's theory that 'The boundaries between genres are shifting'.  It's very hard to say exactly what genre this music fits into because it fits into so many. We believe that people, and especially our target audience of teenagers, listen to music regardless of its genre. We will carry out audience research, including interviews/questionnaires, to prove and test this.