Band Planning

This post has been created to show all of our planning whilst creating our band - Vintage Rocks. All of our research in to pop-rock artists, promotional images and our own images are shown below. We have also researched in to how to style our band. All of this is shown below.

Character Profiles
To plan our band as a whole, we needed to identify the individuals within the band. As shown in our audience research, our target audience do no have a preference to male or female acts, therefore we have decided on a mixed gender band. Below are the character profiles for the three different band members who make 'Vintage Rocks':


















Due to lack of availability and the deadline for our finished music video drawing closer, we as a group have decided to change the original lead singer of our band. Below is a photograph of Sam who will be replacing Amie as the singer in our band. We feel as though Sam fits the typical portrayal of our band's image well and believe that we have made a good decision in doing so and hope that by changing quite a significant part of our band so late on will not effect our final product.






































Promotional Shots


Paramore









Both of these shots of 'Paramore' were taken outside. The lead singer 'Hayley Williams' is the main focus on each. We would also like to do this when creating our own promotional shots.

The Script









Both of these shots of 'The Script' are outside. Although this band is popular, they might have chosen to use outside promotional shots to represent their background/routes. In the second shot, the band are also blurred, this implies the lead singer is most important as he is also positioned in front of the others. The medium shots show off the costumes and relaxed body positioning of the band.

Rihanna













Rihanna uses a studio and an outside shot. This suggests her versatility and popularity as her budget in promotional shots allows her to do both. Both shots are types of close ups: Medium close up and close up. This focuses on her face, appealing to the target audience.

The Pretty Reckless/Taylor Momsen











Both these shots are in a studio. Although 'The Pretty Reckless' is not very big yet, Taylor Momsen has built up her acting career and popularity in the TV series 'Gossip Girl'.
One full length shot and one Medium Close up allows the target audience to see the full background of the shot and the clothing of her. Her clothing also links to the genre which can appeal to the target audience.

30 Seconds to Mars









Medium Shot

Dressed in dark clothing, linking to the genre
Outside setting - natural light
Appeals to target audience as the outside setting can usually represent the routes/background of a band. The target may be able to relate to this.









The black and white contrast again links to the genre. This is another outside setting. As the band are currently not that big within the industry and are quite new. This setting may also suggest that their budget does not allow them to use a studio like other big bands/artists.

All of these bands come from our chosen genre of pop/rock. We have chosen these promotional shots to give us an understanding of what we will do whilst creating our promotional photographs. The majority of these shots were taken outside and not in a studio. As these types of shots are obviously most popular, we will be using this idea when creating our own band. We have storyboarded our own planning of our promotional shots:





















































1. This shot is a promotional shot we can use for advertising. It appeals to the target audience and links to the genre because of the dark colours used. She is also wearing a short dress which would appeal to a specific audience as it is considered a sex appeal.

2. These shots could be used for our CD cover, they are both black and white which may appeal to our target audience as it is different and not many bands do this. It also links to the genre and creates a mysterious/dark representation. Both also suggest our lead singer is the main focus.

3. Both these shots are outside which could suggest the backgrounds/routes of our band members. They also again show our lead singer is the main focus. They will appeal to the target audience as the clothes used are fashionable and the band members can then become 'icons' to our target audience.

Promotional photo shoot
Below are several photographs taken during our promotional photo shoot. We have annoted these pictures, showing the connotations behind why we did certain things.




















Links to other Medias

In order to reach out to our target audience, we decided to create a page on the most popular social networking site around at the moment - Facebook. This allows us to bond better with our fan base and allows them to access private photos and footage they may not usually be able to.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=159824217364109

Above: Screen shot of the signing up process to Facebook

Above: Screen shot of the bands symbol being uploaded as the picture

Above: The final product of the band's Facebook page

Twitter
We not only used the most popular social networking site to reach our audience. We used Twitter too, another social networking site which is used by millions of users and is rapidly growing larger. This site allows people to 'follow' others, including bands, music artists, actors, any many more. This then allows users to see on their live news feed when someone they are following updates their status. This gives the audience the feeling of being more involved with the band as they can reply to them. This helps to make the band a lot more personal as there is the chance that the band may reply.
Below shows the process of creating a twitter account for 'Vintage Rocks':

The image to the left shows Vintage Rocks' twitter profile. Here you can see how many people are following the profile and how many they are following. A list of Vintage Rocks' tweets will also show once they start tweeting.





The image to the left shows how to search for a profile. As you can see, if you search 'Vintage Rocks' on twitter, the profile for our band appears. This makes it easy for audience members to find the band easily.
This link to Vintage Rocks' twitter page is: http://twitter.com/Vintage_Rocks



Institutional Letter

Paramore - Ignorance
This is the song we have chosen to use in our music video:

If I'm a bad person, you don't like me
Well, I guess I'll make my own way
It's a circle, a mean cycle
I can't excite you anymore

Where's your gavel? Your jury?
What's my offense this time?
You're not a judge but if you're gonna judge me
Well, sentence me to another life

Don't wanna hear your sad songs
I don't wanna feel your pain
When you swear it's all my fault'
Cause you know we're not the same
No, we're not the same, oh, we're not the same

We're the friends who stuck together
We wrote our names in blood

But I guess you can't accept that the change is good
It's good, it's good

Well, you treat me just like another stranger
Well, it's nice to meet you, sir
I guess I'll go, I best be on my way out

You treat me just like another stranger
Well, it's nice to meet you, sir
I guess I'll go, I best be on my way out

Ignorance is your new best friend
Ignorance is your new best friend

This is the best thing that could've happened
Any longer and I wouldn't have made it
It's not a war, no, it's not a rapture
I'm just a person but you can't take it

The same tricks that, that once fooled me
They won't get you anywhere
I'm not the same kid from your memory
Well, now I can fend for myself

Don't wanna hear your sad songs
I don't wanna feel your pain
When you swear it's all my fault
'Cause you know we're not the same
No, we're not the same, oh, we're not the same

Yeah, we used to stick together
We wrote our names in blood
But I guess you can't accept that the change is good
It's good, it's good

Well, you treat me just like another stranger
Well, it's nice to meet you, sir
Well, I guess I'll go, I best be on my way out

You treat me just like another stranger
Well, it's nice to meet you, sir

Well, I guess I'll go, I best be on my way out

Ignorance is your new best friend
gnorance is your new best friend
Ignorance is your new best friend
Ignorance is your new best friend

Well, you treat me just like another stranger
Well, it's nice to meet you, sir
Well, I guess I'll go, I best be on my way out

You treat me just like another stranger
Well, it's nice to meet you, sir
I guess I'll go, I best be on my way out

As our target audience are mainly teenagers, we chose this song as it is easily relatable, as they have the same target audience as our band. It also fits under the genre of pop/rock. The song is
by a band called 'Paramore' we chose to shadow this band as it is mixed gender and they play their own instruments. This is what our target audience asked for (in our audience research).

Style for the band

We feel it is important to look at styles from other pop/rock artists as our audience will expect us to look the part. Trends and symbols can be used as iconography. For example, Lady GaGa has a lightening bolt painted on her face. For our icon, we are using the initials 'VR' which stand for our band name 'Vintage Rocks.' The lettering will be in the same font and style we have used for the digipack covers, to keep a recurring theme throughout. Below shows an image of Lady GaGa's iconic symbol:

Our lead singer Amie needs to look the part. When advertising she needs to fit a certain criteria the audience are looking for. We explored a number of different artists and discovered that 'Taylor' Momsen and 'Rihanna' would be the best style icons for her to follow. We decided this as they have the sex appeal but also fits under the hybrid genre of Pop/Rock. She will be visibally appealing to the audience, as many pop acts are today. This is because the institution are trying to sell the artist and not their music. However she will fall under the rock genre as she looks rockier than normal pop acts. We also want the audience to not only focus on her as an attractive lead singer but also focus on their music.














Enrique Iglesias is very fashionable and appeals to his target audience of mailnly women because he is good looking. However he also has many male fans too, as his music appeals to them. We have based our drummer, Stuart, around him and his trends in hope that we would recieve the same popularity towards him.














Ben Hudson also known as Mr Hudson goes for the more smart, formal look. We tried to recreate this in our guitarist Andrew. We stictched badges and chains onto a grey blazer to keep to the 'Mr Hudson' style but also fit into the pop/rock look our target audience will be looking for. As well as Mr Hudson, the blazer we have used to dress our guitarist in was styled around a jacket worn by Danny O'Donoghue from the pop-rock band The Script. The photographs below show both of the styles of Mr Hudson and Danny O'Donoghue.



































Above shows the blazer worn by Danny O'Donoghue and the blazer we made to recreate this, so that our guitarist could wear it. We thought this showed a good image for a rock artist, whilst still keeping it cool to link with the pop side of our genre. We used badges and chains as these are typical of rock artists. We also pinned a guitar pick to the blazer as it was to be worn by the guitarist of the group.

Representation of bands in our genre
We looked at how bands in our genre were represented. This is to help us think about how we are going to represent our own band members and what we are going to do to differenciate ourselves from other acts. Below are some examples of this:



















The Script





















Scouting for Girls




















Possible photoshoot locations:


These are photographs to show the possible locations for the music video. The choice for the locations are from the ideas used by established successful bands such as the script and many more. The script used the corn field setting for several of promotional photos for their new and up-coming album to be released in the near furue. The reason to reject using these photographs is the significance and meaning behind the photographs did not connect with the message and image we was trying to create for our band. The photographs have a link towards other pop/rock bands in the music industry in todays world but we noticed that the link with paramore and the song ignorance wasnot the right decision to make. Instead we persued with the choice of brick wall background inside and outside and the instrumental photographs.






Music video style/theme

We have looked at different music videos within our genre to try and get influence in the way they are filmed and the theme/storyline behind it. We looked at The Script's music video - 'For the First Time' and liked the way they switched between performing to the camera in a live performance, to a storyline about a young couple who have emigrated from Ireland to America, but are now unhappy and want to return home but do not have enough money. It shows how they have grown unhappy with living in America and miss their family and friends back home. The male then sells his possessions so that he can afford plane tickets for them both to return home to Ireland. We liked this initial idea, but then came to the decision that it may be harder for us to create with the lack of location for our shoot.

GET LINK FOR ' FOR THE FIRST TIME '

We finally came to the decision to produce a music video which was purely performance based. Each band member will perform to the camera in an atmosphere which portrays the feeling that the band are signing live to an audience. We also feel that by shooting our video in one location will give us more time to create the type of video that we hope to achieve.

Our bands image for the Music Video





































Paramore’s clothing represents the kind of image they are trying to portray of themselves, which is very laid back and casual. They do not try too hard with making an effort with the way they look, but want people to focus solely on their music and performance.The colour trend that is repeated throughout the bands clothing is black, white, grey and red. These colours all relate to the stereotype of the rock genre, but the red can also relate to love and romance which could link to the pop side of the band. These colours are repeated throughout the bands entire brand, e.g. on their album, etc. This is to link each product to one another. We like the way the band repeat this trend and would like to try something like this with our own band. The album cover and digipak we produced includes similar colours, such as: black, white and yellow, and so we will think maybe about dressing our band in these colours, and repeating this institution throughout its brands and products.