Emailing contacts in the music industry

Me and Kenny went to norwich and went to the music video festival in the forum. We met a guy from BBC Norfolk called Gary and he talked to us about good and bad points of music videos. We received a lot of good advice from Gary and he talked to us in great depth about the structure of music videos and what makes a music video good. It was very helpful and me and kenny will try and incorporate his advice into our music video. He also said that we could contact him for any help and so today me and kenny took him up on his offer and emailed him for location advice for our video. Heres the email that we sent him today:

"Hello,
We came to one of the music video workshops and you said you'd help us out with locations. We will be using the church that you mentioned for And The Winner Is...'s new video but for the A2 course we're filming Rules of Romance a music video and are looking for some low-fee locations (or preferably completely free) maybe some sort of abandoned warehouse or somewhere that would be willing to let us come and film for a day. Or if you have any other ideas that you might know that could be useful to suit the bands genre.
Any help is greatly appreciated,"

Gary has not replied yet.
We also emailed Jon stone who previously worked for the music video company sitcom soldiers who produce music videos that are typically well known for relatively low budget, appealing to smaller and upcoming bands. Here is the emailed we sent him:

"Hey,

Sorry to email you again, but I'm now getting deeper into Pre-Production of our A2 Music Video. We're looking for locations and contacting any of our contacts who might possibly know some good locations for a rock music video relatively local to Norfolk - and at a low fee, or preferably free!

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again"

But Jon replied saying:

"Hi mate,
I haven't done any shoots in norfolk so can't help you i'm afraid. It's always juts to go for a wander, end up discovering places you didn't know existed."

Location Ideas

Today me and kenny have been discussing further ideas for location of our music video. Some of these ideas we discussed were

1) St George's Church in Norwich - We went into the city to have a meeting with the woman who runs the church and she said that we could use the church to film the music video. She said that we could use the music video out of hours that would cost £100 - £200 but she said we are more than welcome to shoot our video during opening hours. However this means that we could get strangers coming into the church when we are trying to shoot which could be quite strange in the video and might make it look unprofessional. But it's a more feasible option as it's free as apposed to the £100 - £200 quote.

2) West Raynham R.A.F Base - There is an abandoned R.A.F base in West Raynham that has two buildings that we could perhaps use to film our music video in. The wikipedia site for this is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_West_Raynham
However one problem with this is that Kenny and I are unsure as who to email to get permission to shoot there. Also it is quite a far way for the band to travel.

3) Pinewoods in Wells Beach - Kenny and I went on a location hunt on the beach yesterday (sunday) and walked through the pinewoods and found this clearing where it could be possible to film. The clearing is very light which is ideal for the music video as we will need little or no lighting. The location is very authentic and beautiful so we could create a powerful live performance/narrative based music video. One problem with this location is that electricity would be hard to get down there to use a CD player to play the track and for lights, however we could overcome this problem by using portable speakers or ipod docs and filming on a sunny day would overcome the light problem. Also we may need to consulate the beach wardens to see if they will let us do this.

Kenny and I are still looking for other possible locations and are emailing contacts in the music industry to see if they know of any locations.

Locations

Today me and kenny emailed Richard Cox who is the founder of creative norfolk. We emailed him to see if he had any ideas for locations such as abandoned warehouses or studios that we could use for our music video as from my research I have carried out these locations are quite typical for music videos of the similar genre. Here is the email we sent him.

Paramore - Emergency

Paramore - Emergency

Paramore are a rock/alternative band from franklin. They have released 3 albums under the label "fuelled by ramen" and the song emergency is off there début album. The music video was directed by Shane Drake who has also done many of the bands other music videos. The band is made up of 4 males and a female lead singer.
The location is in an abandoned warehouse which stands out as quite a conventional setting for music videos of a similar genre. The video structure is part narrative and part live performance, which is a similar structure to the Francesqa video of "ghosts". This could suggest that both narrative and live performance structure and an abandoned warehouse location are both conventions of this genres music videos.
One of the shots that stands out to me is the close up of the female singers lips. Her lips shows evidence of makeup and hence glamour, which could appeal to a male audience. There quite a lot of slow motion action shots of the band's live performance, and the use of slow motion has been made apparent in many music videos I have researched of the same genre so I will try to include this feature in my music video. They are headbanging and swinging guitars suggesting that they are a very energetic band and put on an interesting live perfomance.
The makeup and costumes the band are wearing are quite strange, perhaps resembling that the band are unique. They are wearing smart clothes and a dress in the female singers case and they all had cuts and bruises on the face/bodies. This could be based around the narrative of the story and also represent the name of the song - Emergency, which connotes thoughts of danger, pain and blood.
The narrative is based around a director coming into the room and telling them to follow him. Then he is shown directing a video for them and ordering them about. This could represent that they were pushed about a bit in the music industry and felt quite vunerable, especially because of there young age (the eldest was 19 at the time, the youngest 15). This is reinforced by their confused and almost scared facial expressions as they walk through the studio to shoot their video, with the uses of jump cuts to switch between members and show their worried look.
Their actual live perfomance is very energetic which makes the music video exciting and fast paced. I think this is a good effect so when I come to shooting my music video I will try and make the band perform at an energetic state. Close ups of the lead singer have been made quite dominant with a high proportion of shots based on her rather than other members of the band. This could be because it is seen that the lead singer is the most important, or perhaps that because she is female she is focused on more, perhaps to appeal to a female audience.
The relationship between visuals and lyrics have not been made very apparent in this song. Perhaps the closest to which is the recognition of "love dieing" with a shot of the female singer alone and looking depressed in an arm chair, perhaps representing that she is sad because she has lost someone she loves.
The relationship between music and visuals is a bit more apparent and features aspects such as visuals cutting in time to the music. It also has slow paced editing when the section of the music is more calm and slow, and alternatively fast paced editing when the music is fast and energetic, especially as featured in the chorus.

Francesqa – ghosts

Francesqa - Ghosts - Music Video Analysis

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