Narrative Locations

Scene-by-Scene
Child's bedroom My bedroom
Staircase and Living Room My house
Street outside house Lincoln Close
Park School Field
Bar The Magpie pub
Walking the streets Stapleford

Recce Shots














Permission
Filming in The Magpie pub permitted by verbal agreement over phone call with owner.

Mockup of CD Cover

I wanted my CD cover to utilise imagery from the music video to create a relationship, however I didn't want to simply take a frame from the video and slap it on the front. I decided to plan to capture a specific photograph for the CD cover. I wanted to capture the main character lying down on the floor to represent his loneliness and poor lifestyle once he lives by himself, in an apartment with no furniture. In addition, I added photographs of him with his family on the wall behind him. These would actually be in the set for the child's family's house, but for the cover I felt it was necessary to create a somewhat abstract and artistic image, so I transplanted the photo frames to this set to create a convergence of the two narrative destinations; the child's childhood, and the child's adulthood.

Track Decision

I decided to use the song "Wake Up" by Arcade Fire because of its rich lyrical ties to my treatment. A common interpretation of the song is a telling of the story of growing up and learning, as a child, to be an adult. Lines such as "children, wake up, hold your mistake up / before they turn the summer into dust" tell a vivid warning to children to be honest. The line "if the children don't grow up, our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up" also strongly connotes the process of growing up and seeing the world for what it really is. The narrative section of my video treatment is about a child leaving home and seeing the dangers of the world; depression, alcoholism and drug abuse. I felt that "Wake Up" was a perfect lyrical match for my treatment. Musically, the song's arrangement is very orchestral and contemplative, which also fit my criteria.

Audience Questionnaire

In order to understand what my audience wanted, I conducted a questionnaire amongst the age group:

1. How old are you?
14 (0)
15 (0)
16 (0)
17 (10)
18 (0)
19+ (0)

2. Do you watch music video TV channels?
All the time (2)
Sometimes (7)
Rarely (1)
Never (0)

3. Which style of music video do you prefer?
Wholly Narrative (2)
Wholly Performance (2)
Contains Both (6)

4. Do you prefer music videos to be...
Conventional (0)
Artistic / creative (9)
Unsure (1)

5. Would you like a music video which doesn't feature the artist?
Sure (5)
I Don't Think So (5)

6. Do you think music videos can tell good narrative stories?
Yes (10)
No (0)
Unsure (0)

My results showed me that most seventeen year-old teenagers only watch music video TV channels sometimes, prefer music videos with both a narrative section and a performance, prefer creative and artistic videos to paint-by-colours music videos, definitely think videos can tell good narrative stories but are undecided on if they'd watch a music video that doesn't feature the artist.

This affected my video because I was wondering how heavily the narrative section of my video should be featured. The consensus from my questionnaire was that the narrative story was more interesting than the performance, though it should not exclude the performance. This helped me in my editing process to determine the balance between the two.

Props Planning

Scenes exc. Opening Sequence in House
All narrative scenes following the character's running away from home will require the main character to be carrying a heavy backpack which, in the narrative, contains clothes and possessions. Because of this it should give the appearance of being full and heavy.

Bar Scene
I will need a liquid which looks similar to alcohol (Apple juice eventually used), and a glass for the main character to drink this out of.

Drinking in Street
An empty Vodka bottle filled with water to give the illusion of the liquid.

Target Audience

The target audience for my video is the young 16-24 age group. I decided to target my video towards this group because of their enthusiasm for music videos and intelligent creativity. My audience research later showed that this group were yearning for more creative, artistic and different videos that I was hoping to achieve.

Research into Arcade Fire

I researched the band itself, Arcade Fire:

Arcade Fire

• Based in Montreal, Canada
• Active between 2003 to present
• Signed to labels Merge Records, Rough Trade and City Slang.
• Two studio albums and one EP

More information on one of the band's labels:

Merge Records

• Founded in 1989 by Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance
• Based in Durham, North Carolina
• Primarily signs indie rock artists

Information on another record label the band has been signed to:

Rough Trade

• Founded in 1978 by Geoff Travis
• Based in London, England

The third record label that Arcade Fire have signed to:

City Slang

• Founded in 1990 by Christof Ellinghaus
• Based in Berlin, Germany

Camera Angle Positions for Performance

Original Performance Shot
I decided to film the performance section of my video in a vocal booth. I wanted to reflect the independent nature of the band through the video, so I didn't shoot in an exotic location which would require a big budget. Filming in the booth gave a grounded, natural, organic feel to my video. I shot several takes from both inside the booth and from outside, looking through the glass of the door. I wanted to get shots through the glass so that I could get reflections in front of the actor. These reflections felt similar to bokeh or lens flares, they added more interesting layers to the shot which prevented it from appearing flat and boring.

I also shot from a low angle on the actor, with the light in the ceiling of the booth casting a large lens flare over his head. I wanted to film this shot because it obscured the face of the actor. This made the shot more interesting and would lead the audience to want to see behind the glow of the light. This ties back to the theory of stardom, how a star must be simultaneously present and absent from the viewer. By obscuring their face, they are unreachable by the audience.

Performance by Narrative Actor
In my final cut I decided to re-shoot the performance section of my video using the same actor from the narrative in order to simplify the video and provide emotional resonance between the child's story and the lyrics. I shot the actor sitting against the floral wallpaper of his character's bedroom and mixed close-ups of the face and extreme close-ups, changing framing for different parts of the song. I had the actor lip sync looking directly into the camera, creating a strong connection between his character and the audience and bringing gravity to the lyrics he sung.

Draft Website Copy

News
Funeral wins Best International Album at the BRIT Awards
We would like to thank the BRIT Awards for honouring us with this award. We hope to win again next year with our upcoming album, let's hope!

Debut Album Funeral Released
The long-anticipated debut album from Arcade Fire, Funeral, is now available in stores. The stunning debut from this up-and-coming band is one not to miss. Download it online today from our partners, Amazon MP3 or iTunes.

Videos
You can watch the music video for our first single, Wake Up, right here. We hope you guys like it, let us know what you think!

Discography
Funeral
1. Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
2. Neighborhood #2 (Laïka)
3. Une année sans lumière
4. Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)
5. Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles)
6. Crown of Love
7. Wake Up
8. Haïti
9. Rebellion (Lies)
10. In the Backseat

Biography
Arcade Fire met four years ago when lead singer Win Butler posted an ad in his local paper. He wanted to start a band, but didn't know any musically talented friends. Régine Chassagne was the first to answer the ad and Win was so blown away by her violin skills that he asked her to join almost immediately. Soon after, fellow members Richard Reed Parry, Tim Kingsbury, Sarah Neufeld and Jeremy Gara came on board. They got to work on developing their style and two short years later, their debut album Funeral was released to the world. It has since gone on to become a massive critical success, bagging seven music awards and sixteen nominations. The band have now gone back to the drawing board, working on their second album, hoping to top the success of Funeral.

When asked how they achieved such success, Win Butler said "I don't really know. It's kind of confusing. It still doesn't make sense to me how we got it so right on our first album, because as I was working on it I wasn't sure if anybody was going to like it at all. It was kind of a new sound that not many people had heard before, so it could easily have been a huge flop. Fortunately, we developed a strong fan base and the response we've had has been fantastic. I'm happy we can keep making music, because that's all I've wanted to do."

Brainstorming

I had several ideas at the beginning of this process. My best idea was originally narrative-based and told the story of students receiving exam results, finding that they have all failed, and leaping for joy as they are free from the pressure of continued education. However, the story seemed too thin, so I tried to come up with a new idea that had more depth. My second idea was a spontaneous food fight breaking out in a school lunch hall, however this concept was deemed impractical to shoot as the head of my school rejected my request to film in our hall. The idea later evolved to taking place on a park, then switched from a food fight to a water fight. Following this, I came up with a new idea which I got really enthusiastic about, and it became my final treatment in the same form as the original idea.

Costume Planning

For the main character in the narrative section of my music video, I have decided to dress the actor in a range of colourful t-shirts and jeans. I wanted to personify the childlike innocence through their costume, so their clothes are vibrant and visually appealing. This contrasts sharply with the environment once the child enters the twisted reality, becoming an alcoholic, a drug addict, etc.

For the performer in the performance section of my piece, I dressed the actor in a black shirt and faded jeans. I felt this smart appearance would reflect the indie nature of the song and artist.

Risk Assessment

During the filming of my sequence, there were a number of things that could go wrong that could affect my cast, myself or my equipment. I took the time to outline these in a Risk Assessment and ensure that I was prepared and safe for whatever may happen.

Risk to Equipment
If it were to rain on the day of the filming, my camera would be at risk of getting damaged. Rain would be effective for the cinematography of some of my scenes, so I would continue to film and use an umbrella to protect my equipment.

In case of our equipment being stolen, I would keep my phone with me to quickly alert police.

Risk to Actors
In order to prevent the actor from drinking alcohol I would need to find suitable non-alcoholic replacements to double. It is also possible, walking on the pavement alongside a main road, that the actor could be run over by a car while crossing. If such a rare scenario were to occur, I would have communication equipment on me such as my mobile phone in order to quickly call for medical assistance.