Story Board for music promo video

Magazine Advertisement Mock

Digipak Mock

Filming Location

My group and I wanted to film at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, to capture the beautiful outdoor locations and to conform to the genre of our music video and similar media we have looked at. Prior to going to film, we messaged the Botanical Gardens to ensure we had permission to film and visited the site as a group to look even more at specific locations we wanted to use, to save time on the day, and be aware of any dangers of risks that could be associated, especially as we'd have a lot of expensive equipment with us.  

Roles Within the group

Working in a group, we wanted to make sure we distributed the roles when creating the coursework fairly, below shows which roles we allocated to which person:


Although we are working in a group we all carried out our own research. 


Anna - Filming, Main editor, Ensuring we meet the needs of target audience 


Olivia - Filming, Creative director (planning of shots and locations and where they would appear in the video) 


Abi - Filming, Main photographer, Planning ancillary products  

Research into Magazine Advertisements

When an artist releases a new album they use lots of different promotional material it used to advertise for it to make sure that the release of the album is a success. For our ancillary task we have to produce a magazine advertisement so I chose this, as Ellie Goulding is from a similar genre of music to Holly Lovell meaning the promotional material would also be similar. This is a poster advertising for Ellie Goulding's album 'Bright Lights', it uses the image that is seen on the cover of the album as the main image for the advertisement. The text used for Ellie Goulding and 'Bright Lights' is the same font and positioned similarly on the photograph. Having close similarities between them allows her fans to connect the two together easily, so from just a glance at the image you are reminded of the album immediately. Then to know more details about the album a plain white font is used to elaborate on the ablum. Well know trusted names such as 'The Guardian' have given their reviews of the album on the advertisement, this positive recomendation encourages people to listen to it whether they have heard of the song on not as they trust the opinion of 'The Guardian'. The most popular or perhaps the most well know song in the album has had bold formatting to make it stand out and so people recognise some of the songs in the album. Although this is a poster for Ellie Goulding's album it was also used as a magazine advertisement. This magazine advertisement may appear in music magazine such as 'Q' and 'Billboard'.

This is a Marina & the diamonds magazine advertisement for their album 'The Family Jewels'. This image that is used of the front of the digipak is used as the main image on the magazine advertisement. The same font from the digipak is used for the name of the artist and the name of the album however they are both in different positions. This still means people can associate the two together as they will recognise the image and the font style and colour. Similarly to the Ellie Goulding magazine advertisement they have made a big feature of the singles that are already well known that are featured in the magazine. In this magazine advertisement instead of just putting the font in bold they have a picture of the single cover which may help people to recognise it more easily. The it also has a referral to itunes encouraging people to download it helping the artist to potentially get to #1 in the charts.

Research into Digipak's of similar artists

We selected this digipak as Ellie Goulding was one of the similar artists that I looked at the music video of, this meant the digipak would have similar conventions to the one we create. This album cover represents Ellie Goulding as a free spirited person through the way her hair is blowing upwards almost like she is floating. She has a relaxed expression on her face with her eyes closed making her seem almost dream-like and contented. The text on the album cover 'Bright Lights' which is the name of the album is glowing making adding to the dream like features and relate to the meaning behind the album name. Above her head the light is glowing in a golden colour, this makes Ellie Goulding almost seem like an angel with a halo especially as she is wearing white. There are speckles of light covering the photograph adding to the bright lights theme in the photograph although they have probably been edited in the seem quite natural like they are meant to be there. The background of this photograph is out of focus and shows quite natural colours making Ellie Goulding and the music the focus. This album cover invites the target audience in because she does not look fake with loads of make-up but the album cover looks quite abstract and says a lots about the content of the album, not stereotypical pop music.

This back cover for the Album goes really well with the front cover and because Ellie Goulding it featured on the back cover it means that the audience is not distracted by the artist and looking at them more than the actual songs. The back cover has the consistent light speckles and earthy colours in the out of focus background so it links back to the front cover well.

Marina & the diamonds album cover for The Family Jewels shows her lying down on what looks like quite a vintage style textured material or perhaps even a carpet then looking to the side at the camera. She is well made up and her hair is curly and splayed above her head. The carpet really does not match her image on the front cover and it is a huge contrast in colour and style as she looks modern young well made up and the carpet looks quite old fashioned and vintage, the difference in their colours also adds to the contrast. This could suggest that she is not a stereotypical pop artist and she may appeal to a more alternative audience also. The writing on there is in white and looks almost like it has been painted on as it is imperfect but complements the overall look of the album cover.

This back cover has slightly more content than than Ellie Goulding's as the artist is in and the text it displayed in a curved shape across her hair. The artist has the same hair and make-up so that this back cover can easily be related back to the front cover. Again in this photograph she is lying down but this time it she looks like she in uncomfortably leaning back making her head up-side-down which adds an unusual composition to the photograph. As more of her body is shown in this photograph it could have some sexual connotations because of her positioning and the lack of clothing.  

Research into Similar Media

Ellie Goulding has a very unique voice, I felt that Holly Lovell’s voice reminded of hers and it has a similar soft sweet quality to it. We chose 'Your Song' because it was at a similar tempo to Holly Lovell’s song and a similar genre of music (pop). For these reasons we chose this music video to help us make decisions and think of ideas for our music video.

From watching this video it seems very simple making it seem quite humbling as there is no fancy locations with extravagant make up or clothing but filmed in normal every day scenes such as a train station and a park. The focus is more on the song and it’s almost like they do not need to do much in the video because the song is so good that it speaks for itself. It’s more natural and shows things as they are making the audience feel engaged and connected to the song because they are familiar with these normal every day scenarios. They have also used a hand held camera making it seem like one of her friends is filming her and the audience gets to see Ellie Goulding for who she is. There are lots of straight cuts in the video showing different scenes mainly in the outdoors but sometimes inside and Ellie Goulding seems quite natural in all the places and not like she is performing in front of the camera. One of the consistent shots throughout that it comes back to quite often is a close up of Ellie Goulding's face lip singing to the song. In this shot the lighting is like a warm glow like it was filmed either at sun rise or sunset. The background is quite blurry but she is in focus and although it is very close up she is not looking directly into the camera but looking into the distance like she is thinking deeply about something, making it seem more natural like she doesn't know the camera is there. Some of the shots go into and out of focus adding to the realism in the video and again making it simple and more personal. It also relates a bit to the lyrics in the song as she is not really clear on how she feels about the person she is singing about. There are lots of close ups on specific details thought the video, making it feel really close and personal showing you things of her surroundings, for example there is close ups of her feet, and the leaves on the floor as well as her train ticket. There is no clear story in the shots but they are all randomly put together cutting to the next shot in time with the piano music.

This song stood out to me and I could see lots of similarities between Holly Lovell’s song and this song by Alyssa Bernal. I thought that they both seemed like quite light hearted songs and give off quite a relaxed vibe through the voices of the singers. As the two songs are both from the pop genre and a guitar was used in both of the songs I felt that it was a suitable music video to inspire me for the music video that our group were going to create.

The beginning of the song starts with the camera at a low angle looking up at the trees, the sun is shining through them giving a warm quality to the shot. The camera then pans down to her and her friends walking in an outdoor and quite a natural sunny scene. The warm glow is then shown throughout for example when changing from one shot to another or one scene to another sometimes it will quickly fade into this warm orange glow then onto the next shot. This creates a happy uplifting summer feel to the music video. For a lot of the music video she is lip singing and smiling as she does it, however it does cut to shots where she is not lip singing for example when she is in the playground with her friends, out shopping trying on hats and when she is by the pool with the guy she is singing about. All of these things seem very normal and stereotypical things for a girl to be doing, the song is quite stereotypical throughout for example she is singing about being with a boy forever which is quite naive because this rarely happens with young relationships but it is always a teen girls dream for this to happen. One of the frequent shots it goes to when she is lip singing is a shot of her playing the guitar, lip singing and the background is out of focus but you can make out the natural green leaves and the pink flowers making it look like she is in a natural environment. All of the video is in the outdoors and consistently has a warm sunny feel to it. I think the target audience for this music video would be for more mainstream teen girls interested in pop music. Unusual effects are used when she is with the guy she is singing about for example when she is in the field it is in slow motion the exaggerates how happy he makes her feel and makes it seem like she is treasuring every moment she shares with him, I have noticed that slow motion is used a lot when she is with him. A more surreal effect that is used is at the end when Alyssa jumps into the pool they rewind it and play it again so you can see her fall in from a different angle. Lots of camera angles are used throughout for example an extreme long shot of her and the man standing against a big black and white wall with the huge illustration on and close ups of her face when she is lip singing. It ends with a shot of her and the guy she is singing about looking into the distance with the sun shining through the trees into the camera ending with the same happy warm feeling it had at the beginning of the video.

This song by Lisa Mitchell is really similar to Holly Lovell’s song because they both have quite unusual voices and the guitar is used in both songs. I am going to look at this music video to inspire some of my ideas about the content of our music video as well as looking at the way the shots are put together.

Clean White Love by Lisa Mitchell begins with a hand held camera movement moving towards a  missing poster with a big red heart on its quite mysterious as we have no indication as to where is comes from. This interesting imagery grabs the audience’s attention and indicates to them that the song is about love. The colour red is then continued in a subtle way with the colour of her lips, her gloves shown in the next shot when it cuts to her face as she sweeps her hair back. Then to a close up of her red suitcase on the floor as she puts it down. In this shot the background is out of focus but you can make out quite a few figures which turn out to be her friends. Instead of lots of random shots from different scenes this music video almost follows the artist and her group of friends on a day out. When the artist is not in the frame it is almost like we are seeing the work from her point of view for example when the camera is looking out the window of a train watching all the trees swiftly move past this seems as if it’s from her perspective making the audience engage and empathise with her. The artist seems very distracted and is often in the shot looking out the window daydreaming which is stereotypical of someone thinking about the one that they love. When she is singing no one else is in the frame making it seem like her secret emotions that none of her friends are aware of and there is a clear contrast between the way she is acting when she is with her friends and when she is singing alone. The video throughout almost has a vintage effect on it as it is never really sharp like normal chart music videos but it is a little bit out of focus. This is similar to the Ellie Goulding music video as in her video there are parts that are quite out of focus. The red colour is used throughout from the colour of her Wellington boots, to the colour of her umbrella shown in a bird’s eye view looking down at the artist and her friends walking along in a line. It is also shown at the post box and the colour of the letter that was left for her to read, the mysterious missing poster appears several times throughout the video in the most obscure places making the audience more intrigued to find out what it means and where it comes from. 

Target Audience

Holly Lovell is very similar to artists such as Ellie Goulding, Alyssa Bernal and Lisa Mitchell. These do not follow the conventions of a typical pop artist so they would fit into the genre of indie pop. The target audience can be addressed via NME (new musical express) which is an indie pop media company that was originally just a newspaper but has now become a magazine, a radio station and is also online. This means that it is easily accessible for the more alternative target audience through various different mediums. Another radio station which would be appropriate to reach the target audience would be Radio 1 as it shows a wide variety of different musical talent including indie pop. 

As a group we did some initial primary research into our target audience. Everyone we asked felt that Holly Lovell was of a similar genre of music to Ellie Goulding, Alyssa Bernal and Lisa Mitchell.  We then asked our target audience their favourite features of the videos by these artists some of the common responses were:

"I like the colour burn flickers and fast paced editing"

"I like the home made realistic feel and the fast paced editing - don't know what's coming next"

"I like the nature themed idea and vintage effects"

After receiving this feedback it became clear to our group that fast paced editing as well as unusual effects such as colour burns were a very important feature of indie pop music videos. People also liked the natural locations as well as the hand held camera movement on the videos creating a home made feel to the music videos. As well as using our tripods during filming we also want to have some areas filmed using a hand held camera. We also want to allocate a lot of time for editing as this is quite a significant feature for indie pop music videos and would appeal to the target audience.

Outline of Roles

The Decided Coursework Brief

When we were given all the different briefs we could follow for our coursework, as a group we all liked the first brief which was:


A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with a digipak and a magazine advertisement for the album.


The first thing that we decided to do before we started planning is to find a song that we could use for the promo video. Below is the song that our group have chosen.