Nighttime Music Video: Presentation

Animatronic Storyboard Draft 1

As part of our pitch to the class, we had to create a storyboard to portray our ideas visually; a more interesting way to do this was to make an animatronic version.

Casting

As our music promo is for an indie rock genre, we decided to cast actors around the age of our target audience; averagely 18 years old. We needed two people to perform in our video, a female and a male. Delia and I arranged to hold auditions for the roles on Tuesday the 13th of September, we chose Tallulah George and Joseph Maine.

Joe Maine

Tallulah George

One of the reasons we decided that Joe was the best candidate to be in our music video is because he also studies Media Studies, therefore he understands the process of creating a music video; he is patient and confident in front of a camera. His love for media and helping out with projects was a key aspect in picking him to help us, he also has a love for the band The xx, therefore knows all of the lyrics already.

Tallulah has frequently helped in projects, as well as doing modelling and acting in her spare time, her confidence and seriousness about helping Cordelia and I made us very keen of her. Both of our actors agreed that they feel very comfortable in front of an audience or camera.

Location Scouting

My partner and I decided to film in two different locations to begin with, Windsor/Eton and inside a studio at school. We decide that to follow the indie-rock genre theme we would shoot some shots of our male character singing against a white backdrop. I created a presentation full of interesting photographs and gifs which relate to some of the lyrics e.g. Nighttime, Stars, Moon, Constellation etc. Our decision to film in the beautiful location of Windsor/Eton was mainly because of the romantic feel of the place, they are full of couples and cute features.

Throughout the beginning we are planning on shooting each actor in different locations, Talulah in Windsor and Joe in the art studio at school. At the end we are going to film them finally meeting in a completely different location; which we are later yet to decide. I requested to hire a projector to project my presentation onto the white backdrop over Joe, as he looks sad and portrays a broken hearted man. The presentation includes aspects of weather, nature, indie patterns and features of nighttime.

Our initial idea was to film in the city of London. We planned shots to film on the busy underground and on streets such as Oxford Street and abandoned dark places in Soho, however after some deep thought and attempted planning we decided that this would be too difficult. With the lack of time to film before our deadline and the use of two different actors, finding a date which they could both attend to seemed to be the most difficult. We acknowledged that we would have to revisit the location multiple times which would be extremely expensive as a train ticket will be approximately £20 each time. We discovered that the weather would be too unpredictable and as we don't have the correct lighting equipment that we would need we decided to stick to filming locally.


To make things more visually pleasing and interesting, I constructed a youtube video of our location visit in Windsor and Eton:

Enjoy x

The xx Approval

In order to use the song 'Night Time' by The xx, we had to contact the label to seek permission to have the rights for the music. My partner, Delia constructed a formal email to the band manager of the indie rock band 'The XX', Emma Lomas. On their website we found an email address which allowed us to seek permission to use it. Below are the screenshots of the conversation:

Analysis of The XX

The xx are an English minimal indie rock band formed in 2005 in Wandsworth, London. The group released its debut album, xx, in August 2009. The album was a commercial and critical success and was ranked highly on many best of 2009 lists, including number one on the list compiled by The Guardian and second for NME. In 2010, the band won the Mercury Music Prize for its debut album. Their second album, Coexist, was released on 10 September 2012.

Young Turks is a British independent record label owned by Beggars Group, launched by Caius Pawson as an imprint of XL Recordings in 2006. It has grown from an imprint into a successful and influential label, now partnered with XL and operates across a range of genres. The label's current roster includes The xx, FKA twigs, SBTRKT, Sampha, Jamie xx and Koreless. As well as releasing records, Young Turks throws parties and host radio shows.

In 2004, Caius Pawson supplied DJs and sound equipment for a series of all-night dance parties he called Young Turks. He enjoyed growing celebrity, until the police raided one of his parties and seized his gear. Pawson, then nineteen, took a job in A&R at XL Recordings, and quickly established his own small label within the company, also called Young Turks with Katie O'Neill and Tic. In 2009, Young Turks released The xx’s debut album, xx. It has sold more than a million copies, won the Mercury Prize and been awarded best British and Irish album of the year.

XL Recordings (or simply XL) is an English independent record label founded in 1989 by Richard Russell, Tim Palmer and Nick Halkes, and owned by Russell and Beggars Group. The label originated as a 1989 offshoot of Beggars Banquet Records. Though only releasing an average of six albums a year, XL Recordings has worked with Adele, Beck, Dizzee Rascal, Electric Six, FKA twigs, Gil Scott-Heron, Gotan Project, The Horrors, Jai Paul, M.I.A., The Prodigy, Peaches, Radiohead, Sampha, SBTRKT, Sigur Rós, Tyler, the Creator, Vampire Weekend, The White Stripes and The xx. The label releases albums worldwide and operates across a range of genres.