Ideas

This page is for all of the ideas I have. This will include my project concept, my SWOT analysis, my mood-board, and most importantly my inspiration and final idea!

Project Concept

Name	Courtney Beckett
Pathway	Media Year 2 Level 3
ProjectTitle	Final Major Project- Invaders Must Die Music Video	Unit No	13
Section 1: Rationale/Review (Level 2 approx 50 words, Level 3 approx 100 words)
For my final major project, my chosen medium is a music video for the song Invaders Must Die by The Prodigy. My music video will be targeted towards a target audience of young adults, because it involves technology within the video, and the song I have chosen is within the genre of dance music which tends to appeal more to a younger audience. My video will apply to the hypodermic needle theory in terms of supplying a message through mass media. My video will include a large robot character who is sending out a message to lots of other people who will follow him, almost like a sort of “cult”. All of these little robots will travel from far and wide to join the big robot, all whilst trying not to be caught by another female character who is chanting the “invaders must die” part of the piece of music. I only have a very low budget for this, therefore I may lack resources and cast to make the project as big as I want it, however I will work around this by improving my skills in due course on Photoshop and Premiere Pro. I will be using a DSLR to film the video, Photoshop to create any small graphics I may need, and Premiere Pro to edit the video.
Section 2: Project Concept (Level 2 approx 100 words, Level 3 approx 200 words)
What is it and how am I going to do it? My music video is a video based on the song Invaders Must Die by The Prodigy. The main concept for my music video is that a large character resembling a robot will be sending out a message through different forms of media e.g. through social media, through phones, through TVs, through computers, through radios etc. and there will be lots of other little robots that will make journeys to all meet in different places such as: a forest, a city, a beach etc. until they get “busted” by the woman character that is trying to stop it all. As the video goes on the woman character will get closer to catching them, however she will not succeed and all of the mini robots will finally meet up in one place with the big robot. The big robot represents the one in power/the god-like figure for the little ones, and they are being persuaded by the media that he is the best.  For my music video I am going to have to research a number of things. The most important thing being the hypodermic needle theory, as this is what my music video is going to be based upon, as the message that the leader of the cult is sending out and the way the audience are receiving it is similar to that of how the hypodermic needle theory works. Another thing that I will look at is a number of alternative music videos, one of them being Omen by The Prodigy (Prodigy, 2009) to see what they are like and what I should change about my own piece to fit the conventions of a typical alternative music video. I will also look at the book Political Science and Political Sociology in Brief (Elahi, 2016) as this will give me more information on the hypodermic needle theory, which will contribute towards how I display my version of said theory. The last thing that I will look at is different camera techniques and how they affect the overall feel of the video.
Section 3: Evaluation (Level 2 approx 50 words, Level 3 approx 50 words)
Identify any strengths and weaknesses with part 1 and 2. What are my strengths and how will they play in this project?  A strength that I have is editing, as I can do this quickly and I am good with continuity, which is helpful when I am struck with a tight time constraint such as the one for the FMP. Another strength that I have is colour grading which is also really great for this project as I would like to colour grade a lot of my project to make the tones cooler throughout. Some weaknesses that I face are working with a crew. I have only worked with a crew as the director once before, for the live project, and although this went well I am still not fully comfortable with leading a team and putting my trust in to other people. People always work with a crew in the industry, however, and as long as I include my crew in decisions and make sure they know their roles. I am also not too strong at the paperwork part of the production process, therefore I am worried about this part too. I did a lot of paperwork for the Maths Forum shoot though, so I am feeling more confident than I did at the beginning of the year, but I know that I have a lot to improve on. The last weakness that I need to work on is my camerawork. I know that this will come with experience, however I want to create the right feel for my video, therefore I need to look up techniques that I want to include and work on creating those.
Proposed Research Sources and Bibliography (Harvard Format)
Bibliography Elahi, D. M. (2016). Political Science and Political Sociology in Brief.N/A: Osmora Incorporated. Prodigy, T. (2009, January 19). Omen. The Prodigy - Omen (Official Video). Braintree, Essex, England: XL Recordings.

Mood-board

Below you can see a mood-board for my final idea. My mood-board includes a number of the different types of shots, locations and characters that I want in my video, and it also includes the target audience and the reaction that I am looking to get from said audience.

The picture of the person running away from the large hand represents the robots running away from the person trying to stop them from congregating together. The lady with the megaphone represents the person who is trying to stop them, and the robot head represents the way that I want my characters to look in the video. The picture of the baby looking up at the ballerina represents the way the smaller robot characters will look up to the bigger robot character, and the image of the needle going into the head represents the way that the bigger robot is going to penetrate the message that he is sending out through different forms of media such as a boom-box (as seen above). The ants running around in a circle represents the number of shots that I will have that will be focussed around a group of people running around in a circle in the final product, and the beach, forest and the carpark all represent different locations that I want in my final piece. Lastly, the picture with the blue background of the lady smiling, and the picture of the boy smiling show the energy and the happiness that I want my piece to give people. I want the target audience (seen at the top, the group of young adults) to enjoy watching my piece and for it to make them a bit "pumped"/energised.

SWOT Analysis

I am happy with my SWOT analysis, and I feel as though I have identified some key things to work towards throughout this final major project. I am aware of my troubles with pre-production and am looking to really work on that and improve ready for my next move into the industry.

Inspiration

I was driving in my car when the song Invaders Must Die came on and I got a vision of some robot characters running away from something. I got a really buzzed feeling, and I felt inspired to create. This was just around the time that the FMP began, so I thought it was perfect timing to develop this idea further into a full music video. I had also recently been to a concert where my favourite band Don Broco performed, and at the particular concert I was at, they filmed a music video for one of their new songs "Half Man Half God". Within their video, they had a huge circle pit around a cowboy character which was meant to be their "God", and I really loved this idea.

              

You can see above the sheer size of the circle pit, and you can see the cameraman inside getting all of the shots! It really got me thinking about how I would like something similar within my own music video. Of course, I did not want to copy the idea but I definitely wanted to take some sort of inspiration from it, so major thank you to Don Broco for inspiring me so much!

Of course, at this point all I had was a couple of things that I loved, and now I needed a narrative. I decided the best way to develop my idea was by discussing my idea with a number of people including a tutor at my college, some class members, my boyfriend and his family and my own family. I got a lot of feedback on my idea, and a few suggestions including having the robot send out a message as a reason for the robots to be travelling to the larger one, and him starting off as a good character and slowly turning out to not be.

Final Idea


After all of my research and after looking into lots of different things and speaking to different people, I have decided on my final idea being based on the idea of propaganda being spread through social media. I will represent this by showing some human characters at the beginning on their various devices, and the main robot is sending out that message.

The message appears to be a good one, a message of peace and love to start with, however as the video develops the signs change to hazardous symbols because the message he's sending out is actually not a good one, but no one realises because it's too late- they're already hypnotised. 

There is going to be a female character in white clothing trying to stop it from happening, shouting "Invaders Must Die" along with the music, however no one listens to her because they are already hypnotised by the message that the main robot sent out.

The end scene will be the robots coming out and circling around the main robot as if he is their "God". 

This idea is all very random, but thanks to the help of my peers and some research I have found a direction in which to take it, and there is a very powerful message behind it, which is: don't get taken up by what you see on social media, because even though it may look positive, there may be a negative meaning behind it all.





EDIT: The final video for the song Half Man Half God by Don Broco was released on 23/05/2019 (my birthday!) so I thought for reference I would put it in here, as it shows the effect that I wanted in my own video really well. 

             

Creating music videos like this and witnessing them being made is an absolute passion of mine, and being able to be a part of the creation of that music video inspired me so much, so a huge thanks to Don Broco for being the main inspiration for my final piece! Wouldn't have made such a great piece without them!