Letters of Permission

Millmead House

Millmead
Guildford
Surrey
GU2 4BB
United Kingdom
Telephone: +44 01483 505050
Email: customerservices@guildford.gov.uk


To whom It may concern,

We are a group of A level media students from Hurtwood House School.
We are writing to you for permission to film in Guildford town center and other surrounding areas for our coursework. The video would consist of people wandering the streets. There are two different groups within our video, this is made up youths and a group of the older generation. The youths will be leading the older generation by a guitar lead as bait to capture them. All of the capturing will be filmed in our studios at school.

The video will not be defamating the image of your town what so ever, there will also be no reference to  the name of the town or any street names. Any mess will be automatically cleared up. We will be supervised by our teachers under strict instructions. We also are writing to possibly get permission to shoot a wide shot of Guildfords Skatepark? again any mess will be cleared. The video has currently been set in date for Wednesday the 9th of November. We are planning to film at around about 4:00pm In Guildford after spending the morning filming at school.

We would appreciate a response and hope to hear from you soon.

Many thanks
Patch Wadsworth, Holly Finlay, Oscar Jackson, Charlie Lindsay


Hurtwood House School
Holmbury St Mary
Dorking
Surrey
RH5 6NU

Asking For Copyright Permission

To (name of record label/contact at record label)

UNIVERSAL PUBLISHING AND RAM RECORDS

 

We are a group of A Level students working on an A Level project for a qualification in Media Studies. We are writing to request permission to use the following track as part of this project:

Name of track and artist

"LET YOU GO" - CHASE & STATUS

With your permission the track would be used as the accompaniment to a short form video that is made purely for assessment purposes and will have no commercial usage. The video will be viewed only by members of the school community and the assessor of the examination board.

The artist and the copyright holder will of course be fully recognised in the pre-production and evaluation material that accompanies the project. We can also include a full copyright notice if required both in the planning material and on the video itself.

Yours sincerely

HOLLY JADE FINLAY, PATCH WADSWORTH, CHARLIE LINDSAY AND OSCAR JACKSON
Student names
Hurtwood House School

Our Pitch/Treatment/Inital Idea

Feedback

Well done, Holly.  There is excellent work here on your timeline and the blog as a whole remains exemplary.  You have kept up with the demands of the various posting and as a result there is a very clear sense of development emerging and a coherent sense of how you want to promote your artist to their target audience.

James

"Let You Go" - SMAK Timeline

Album Cover Inspiration PowerPoint

Digipak Covers

We still yet have to design our own digipak covers, however below are some tohers, which have given my group inspiration. The first example is the actual digipak for the single of our song, 'Let You Go' by Chase and Status.


This front digipak cover by Chase and Status immediately catches our attention for a couple of reasons. The colour yellow is very striking compared to the contrasting dark background and catches our eye. The colour yellow tends to be linked with hazard signs and some emergency vehicles. The use of an iconic emergency colour may create excitement for the viewer because of how much it stands out. However we can also notice a very sharp and clear extreme close up of a bulldog behind the writing. Bulldogs are strong and intimidating when things are linked with this animal we do think of power and dangerous situations. Possibly C &S are showing that this album is dangerous in a good way, it will let you become a metaphorical bulldog, by being hard and fearless, and the fact that the bulldog is there creates a statement that it means business.

Another artist in the same genre who we could relate 'SMAK' too, is Asian Dub Foundation. They are a British electronica band that plays a mix of rapcore, dub, dancehall and ragga, also using rock instruments, acknowledging a punk influence. Their distinctive sound also combines indo-dub basslines, searing sitar-inspired guitars and ‘traditional’ sounds, shot through with fast-chat conscious lyrics. They have recently broken through with some drum 'n' bass tracks. Below if their album cover. This cover, shows us the type of music and the genre. 

However another artist, Dizzee Rascal, portrays the same star image, we wish for our star 'SMAK' to portray. The 'badman' and 'hardcore' image. Dizzee is known for being outrageous and bad. This is the same image we would like our star to have. Below is a the digipak for Dizzee's first album 'Boy In Da Corner'. Strangely enough, it has the same colour scheme as the Chase and Status album cover. Portraying the same image and message. However, due to this being his initial breakthrough he is pictured on the4 front, using some hand gesture to symbolise how, he may be known as an 'animal' as in the derogatory term for his behaviour. 

Institutional Context

Our Artist SMAK, will be signed to a very small independent record company. A record company such as Bad Sekta. Bad Sekta showcases experimental electronic music from genres that have grown and developed out of the free party scene. Fusing elements of Drum’n’Bass, Techno, Hardcore and Industrial, as well as a hefty dose of experimentation; non-commercial styles of music have been able to flourish in the free party environment and Bad Sekta aims to bring some of these artists to the ear of those who’d normally pass them by.

This type of record company, really helps to highlight their type of star image, and how they would be hired or taken on by a type of company like this. 

Feedback

Well done, Holly, there is plenty of material up here despite your problems with Slideshare.  There is a clear sense of the kind of genre you want to work in, although your target audience profile would benefit from having more detail of the lifestyle of the ideal listener.  Let's try again to get some of your video examples embedded so that they are easy to access.

James

Our Listener

 

• Male
• Aged between 14 – 24 (school or uni)
• Race – White or Black
• Middle Class because there are able to afford this consumption.
• Trendy and Fashionable
• To look hard
• Following trends (sheep)
• Watch MTV, Read ‘NME’
• Active on the Nightclub Scene
• Go to Festivals and Live Performances
• Older audience – childless, still thinking their young, still go out socialising.

Our Track Choice - CHASE & STATUS - "Let You Go"

The original pair of DJ's who wrote and mixed the song, along with vocalist Mali. This post is to show the difference between the original act and our hypothetical one, created by us.

CHASE AND STATUS

Chase & Status are an electronic music production duo from London consisting of Saul Milton and Will Kennard. MC Rage & Andy Gangadeen also make up the live band. Their videos usually have huge representations and narratives, helping me get the idea for my own music video. Here are some examples ...

"HITZ" - Chase and Status ft. Tinie Tempah



"TIME" - Chase and Status ft. Delilah



"HYPEST HYPE" - Chase and Status ft. Tempah T

Research into real artists of a similar type ...

Our Inspiration ... Artists of the same 'Star Image'.

SKEPTA

Skepta has released five singles off his third studio album Doin' It Again (first with a major label). Titled "Bad Boy", "Rescue Me", "Cross My Heart" featuring Preeya Kalidas", "So Alive" and "Amnesia", as well as a video for the Hello Good Morning (Grime Remix).

Official Webpage Screenshot

SKEPTA - "BAD BOY" Official Music Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNj92GY6qKk



WILEY

Wiley is a prolific English music producer, MC and Recording Artist with roots from Trinidad, he is a rapper and one of the original founders of Grime Music. Wiley has been active in the fields of jungle, drum & bass and UK garage music. He is credited as a pioneer of the grime music genre which emerged in east London in the early 21st century.

Official Website Homepage screenshot -

WILEY - "WEARING MY ROLEX" - Official Music Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOAZsad_ea8



DIZZEE RASCAL

Dylan Kwabena Mills born 1 October 1985, better known by his stage name Dizzee Rascal, is an English rapper, songwriter and record producer.[6] His music is a blend of garage, hip hop, grime, ragga, pop and electronic music, with eclectic samples and more exotic styles. Best known for his number-one hits "Dance wiv Me", "Bonkers", "Holiday", "Dirtee Disco" & "Shout", his debut album, Boy in da Corner, won him the 2003 Mercury Prize.
Mills' father died when he was young, and he was raised in Bow, in the East End of London, for most of his life in a single-parent family by his Ghanaian mother Priscilla, about whom he says: "I had issues as a kid. I was violent and disruptive. The way my mum helped was by finding me a different school every time I got kicked out, always fighting to keep me in the school system."


Official MySpace page for Dizzee Rascal -

DIZZEE RASCAL - "JUS' A RASCAL" - Official Music Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pnJPX60vXA

Overall all 3 acts, have the same 'badman' image which they are trying to portray to represent an image for their genre, as well as to gain an audience of the similar type. Especially teenage boys who think if they listen to this type of music, it instantly gives them the same image. This is what we are trying to portray with our star.

Our Pitch

Feedback

Plenty of good, relevant material here, Holly, which offers a clear picture of how you approached this preliminary task and the strengths and weaknesses of the project. Keep this level of detail going with the research and planning of the main task, so that the examiner can clearly see the processes you have gone through.

James

Treatment and Evaluation of Music Videos (Summer Holiday Work)

Swedish House Mafia - "One" (Your Name)

SHM make house music with a heavy bassline. They use a lot of rhythmic editing to help show this. They alos use a lot of paint and colour to highlight a 'rave' scene where they music is likely to be played and to show a vibrant atmosphere. There are a lot of dancers in these videos as they want to ortray how people dance to their music. The shots of hands on the instruments shows they are talented musicians.

Treatment
This video used a lot of interesting scenes and shots which made it look very vibrant. However some of the shots I thought looked tacky, and quite low budget for such a hit. It showed a missed opportunity where a really visually interesting video could have been. Therefore I thought about the Todorov theory and they could have used a narrative for the video. I wuld have used the lyrics to help narrate the story.
In my opinion, I would have done something a bit like this:-

Equilibrium - It would start in a circus, male in the audience is chosen to be part of the act. He enters a box for a trick.

A disruption - Once inside the box, he travels arond back stage and see' clowns and siamese twins, dwarfs etc.

A recognition - The man then sots a beautiful woman who he follows as he wants to know her name.

Resolution - He follows her and walks onto stage, looks down and realises he is now part of the act.

New EQ - He walks out on stage and is confused by the change, the woman comes up to him and kisses him. End.


Beyonce - "Run the World (Girls)"

Beyonce portrays herself as a strong, independent powerful woman. She is known as the 'leader of her kind'. She is also fiesty and vicious, this is shown through her attitude and dance moves. Her sex symbol image is provocative yet not slutty. Knowles dance moves highlight how she is talented and hard working. Her outfits emphasise her curvy and sexy body compared to many other size 0 artists. The tribal face paint and outfits highlight her black ethnic background.

Treatment
This video highlights the battle of the sexes superbly, and helps to highlight the lyrics and the meaning of the song aswell, by showing a group of women literally overuling. However I would have changed this slightly by instead of having males and females in conflict I would have emphasised this image more by showing men below women. For example, instead of having Beyonce holding two hyenas, it would have been more symbolic to have men instead. I would also have used Beyonce in a scene as a royal figure to literally symbolise how girls would run the world. I would also ave used less dancing, desite it being a very symbolic routine, however some of the moves, are still representing seduction, defeating the meaning of the song. Instead of the dancing I would have used more sequences of the women being 'stronger' than the men.



Micheal Buble - "Feeling Good"

Buble has a very sexy, superhero, powerful image. He is shown through the mise en scene shows a James Bond theme. The silver expensive car shows his wealth and success. Women which are chasing after him, highights his sex symbol image. Red lighting symbolises his sexy and dangerous nature. The world map behind Buble symbolises his 'world domination'. However towards the end, Buble begins to mock himself, when he is unable to enter the car, showing his funny and cheeky personailty.

Treatment
The video highlights Bubles star image beautifully. Showing his sexiness and personality throughout, by using the suave and sophisticated 'Bond' theme. However I found the video slightly cheesy towards the end, which ruined it for me slightly. Therefore I would have used less special effects and made the women sexier holding more weapons. I would also give him a higher status by giving him a ;large weapon highlighting masculinity. I would also change the dancing girls in a colour silhouette and make it red rather than purple.

Acres Of Life - Music Video