The groups letter to Sub Pop records

Dear Sub Pop Records,

I am an A level student and I am writing to request your permission to use one track from the first album by Band of Horses entitled “Everything All The Time”.

The track I wish to use is “The Funeral”, track 4 on the album.

With your permission, this track would be used in my current A-level Media Studies project which involves creating a music video for a popular music track, as well as producing an album and a magazine advert for the artist.

If I received your permission, this track would ONLY be used in an educational context and be viewed by my media class, my teacher and the OCR exam board moderator. It would NOT be released to a large audience or uploaded to any public video websites.

The artist and your company would of course be fully recognized throughout pre- production and the final video itself. A copyright notice, with wording supplied by you can be included in the records of the project. If this is required, please send full details.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Claire Martin

Lyrics to visuals possibilities

"I'm coming up only to hold you under" - Our model possibly in the bath, fully clothed, with eyes wide open.

"Really to late to call" - Model sitting alone where she had been previously with her boyfriend, but all of the props are still there e.g. picnic rug.

"Is to know me all wrong" - This lyric actually fits in perfectly into our concept of the girl being cyber bullied on Facebook and by text messages, we had the idea of filming her Facebook page, with her profile full of hurtful messages, this could almost be filmed in a blurred fashion or with a handheld camera to give the impression she is in shock and confusion about what she has seen. We also had the idea of receiving a hurtful text, for example "we hate you", i think this should be filmed over the shoulder, to give a personal touch to it, almost like the audience has opened the text, this could also be filmed using a handheld camera.

"At every occasion i'll be ready for a funeral" - Either some sort of church/graveyard connotations, for example. Gravestone, church, graveyard, etc. Or our model possibly looking down at a grave or even into a coffin.

"To the outside, the dead leaves, they all blow" - We had the idea of our model running through a forest or woods, surrounded by autumnal leaves, bare foot in a long white dress. We also had the idea of her sitting alone cross legged with the "dead leaves" positioned around her. This could be filmed in two different ways, one for example could just be a medium close up of her, but i think if we started with a close up of her face, (possibly crying) then gradually zoom out to reveal that she's sitting all on her own, again revealing her isolation and loneliness.

"At every occasion i'll be ready for a funeral" - This line is very similar to the one that i mentioned earlier, however it is now "a" not "the", its almost like its her funeral, so we could have the same grave she was looking into, but with her laying on top.

Feedback from our pitch

The group came with the decision that we had no real meaning and substance to our video, we had a lot of fantastic small ideas, but that would clearly not fit the 3:46 minute length, that the video has. We had the burning cigarette that would slowly burn out towards the end of the video, drowning in the bath, shots of a church/graveyard. But no real base to build those ideas from.

We came up with the idea of cyber bulling. It is a major talking point in society at the moment and something that relates to our video extremely well. We had the idea of a girl 17 - 19 years old, being bullied on the Internet and with the use of technology, for example Facebook and text messages. Texts reading, "we hate you", for example. She would then eventually commit suicide.

We would start the video with flashbacks of when she was happy and enjoying her life with a boyfriend and friends of hers, the story would then turn and reveal the truth, about her bullying and how upset she was. The flashbacks would also show happy memories where she had been previously with her boyfriend, however this time sitting alone, for example, at a picnic.

We also had the idea of her running away from everything, bare foot, in a long dress, into a deserted woods. This part would show her isolation from everyone else. We had the idea also of her sitting cross legged, whilst reading her text, or just looking lonely, possibly with a tear. The actual funeral scene itself will be split, across the grave, where she will be lying. With the people who drove her to her death and her family, her family upset and her bullies possibly pale and emotionless. Both groups of people will be holding the same flower, maybe that the girl had been wearing throughout the video. For example a rose. We are still developing ideas.

Analyzation of the lyrics

Myself and the group analyzed our song's lyrics, generating ideas for the video, everything from lighting, imagery, themes, colours, putting our thoughts and opinions together we managed to generate idea's that others hadn't of thought about, like a black and white theme and why there is so much repetition throughout the song.

Target audience research

Identifying our target audience is vitally important to the success of our music video. We have to make the sure the song and the images themselves on the video relate to what our target audience know and love from there typical music video. I think myself and the group have decided that we are definitely going to go down the indie/rock route.

However, we cannot just jump straight into filming what we think is indie and rock in terms of a music video. Therefore i have visited many target audience websites to help me find what the perfect indie is, what they like, what they listen to and most importantly what they don't like!

I have visited UK Tribes - The Home of UK youth research and BBC Switch, which has many videos on indie kids, rock kids and other social groups.

The research below is from the BBC Switch website under "Indie". It is about a girl called Amy, what she enjoys and what to expect from a typical indie. This has thoroughly helped me to get a clearer view for how our video should look, in terms of Mise en' Scene, lighting and a general feel of how our video should look!

The research below is also form the BBC Switch website, however this time it is about "Skaters". I think Skaters definitely fit into the rock/indie theme that we are strong about, they are one of our key audiences for our song and video, i think the opinion's and interests of skater kid's are vital to the success of our video. This information has also helped me, to have a clearer picture in terms of what's going into our video.

The research below is from UKTribes, this website has a huge amount of information on each category of person, form Indie to Chav, Townies to Gamer Kids. So this website was perfect for research in finding out what our true audience were, what they listen to, what they expect and what they love. Below is a large amount of research that i have looked thoroughly over the past three days, it has helped a lot.

What are they wearing?

Foppish, floppy haircut
Waistcoat
Thick rimmed glasses
A lovely coiffeured fringe (on both boys and girls)
Cardigan
Stripy T-shirt
Brightly-coloured socks
Bleached hair for the girls
Tight jeans, maybe white?
Pork-pie hat
Harrington-style jacket
Long on top, short on the sides hair-cuts
Converse or winklepicker shoes
Girls - lumps of hair removed in unexpected places on head

Converse
The classic Indie Scenesters brand. Whether it’s about The Strokes or the Ramones, you decide.

Cheap Monday
Been hanging around for a while now but still the jeans to own if you have money in your pocket and want that 'skinny' look.

Baracuta
The makers of the original Harrington jackets, these appeal to the mod side of Indie Scenesters.

Nike
Still the choice of shoe for the Scenester and those high tops are looking very tidy with a pair of skinny jeans and an angular hair cut.

Conventions of a music video

There are many aspects that a music producer has to follow and understand when producing the video. For example lighting, lyrics to visuals - how they link, target audience, mise en'scene - so for example setting, clothing, props and where everything will be positioned. A useful website to use when researching target audiences is UK Tribes.com.

Lighting - Lighting is an integral part when producing a music video, the producers also have to think about the type of song and genre, for example a rock/indie style song will require a dark background and dark setting. However a more up beat, R'n'B, soulful partying song, would require a light background with a bright setting to balance the mood of the song and the lyrics!

Lyrics to visuals - Putting together the lyrics to visuals on a music video is extremely important, you have to have the two matching and working well together. If it is a totally random picture or a bright colourful clip involving rainbows and sunshine, it clearly won't fit into our chosen genre of indie/rock, and especially our song. Therefore we must make sure this does not happen to us, our lyrics must match, for example in our song "at every occasion i'll be ready for a funeral" we will need a funeral type effect, graveyard, churches and a black white theme in my opinion to fit in with a funeral theme!

Target audience - We must identify our chosen target audience before we do anything, so we know exactly where to start and research into what they want and expect in their type of music videos. We have the base idea of indie/rock, but that it is too broad in my opinion, to help me and my group, i suggest we should look into UK Tribes.com, this will really help us to find out what the perfect indie/rock male and female fan love, then we can relate back to our video and reflect from those ideas.

Mise en'scene - Our chosen song is called the funeral, so instantly the setting has to be church and graveyard related, i think black and white with only little glimpses of colour should be shown in the video, possibly a close up of an emotionless face form a long shot? The black and white theme obviously will work very well with the idea of a funeral. In terms of clothing me and the group were thinking sharp tuxedos for a group of men, possibly, and the women in black suits. However if the video becomes a performance near the end or even randomly in the middle of the narrative, we will dress the band members, stereotypical indie clothing i think we should use, for example, skinny jeans, blazers, formal shoes, military boots etc. There are no females in the band so we will not have to worry about extravagant make up and clothing for them. I think the male band members we will select will have to already have a sense of indie about them, it would be pointless if they didn't. Props will be used a lot through out our video, we like the idea of random objects appearing or our actors holding them, just to get the audience thinking about what it could mean.

For example:

• Roses
• Cigarettes
• Burning cigarette
• Top hats
• Gravestones
• Tarot Cards
• Full moon

Band of Horses research

They are an American band formed in 2004 in Seattle. The band currently has five members, they are Ben Bridwell, Ryan Monroe, Tyler Ramsey, Bill Reynolds and Creighton Barrett. The band recorded their first album in 2005, and it was released by Sub Pop, on March 21, 2006, Sub Pop is a major record label.

The band's first single was The Funeral, the song has been used in television series, films, Playstation games, Xbox games and advertisements.

In 2008 Band of Horses played at many well known and popular festivals, including, Glastonbury Festival, T in the park, Bridge School Benefit and Roskilde Festival.

On April 20th, the band appeared on "Later... with Jools Holland" promoting Infinite Arms by playing new songs "Compliments" and "Factory", after this appearance on Jools Holland the bands two earlier albums entered the UK Top 200 for the first time. An outtake from the album, "Life on Earth" has been used on the soundtrack of the Twilight Saga film Eclipse, released on June 7, 2010.

Link to Band of Horses wikipedia page