Fiza's Advanced Portfolio

 From this point onwards, we start the production phase of our music video.

 Here's the link to the Google sheet where my team and I collaborated to make the shot list:

 For the outdoor locations (park and subrubs) we decided to film in my colony in one of the parks that were relatively larger and the rest in nearby streets. The park was walking distance from my home so conveyance wasn't an issue.  Park: Suburban streets: For the indoor shots, we needed a bedroom, a dining room or lounge for the party scenes, a window where our actress will be sitting and a kitchen. Since we were gathering at my place for the outdoor scenes, we decided to use my room as the filming location, as well my dining room, except we would have to rearrange some furniture. For the window, since we'd be filming it from the outside we decided to use the one in my brother's room which opens to the terrace. However, my kitchen didn't go with our video's theme overall because the structure of it meant that there would be a lot of things in the background that could be distracting, and also my kitche is grey and black so the palette was completely off as well. Te...

We divided this task because we could not meet up to shoot and edit this. Hira took charge of filming the video, while I edited it and Tehreem made the final changes and finishing touches and refinement etc. #teamworkgoals. The BTS of the shoot are on Hira's blog since she did the filming. Here's the final thing: Update: We got our preliminary exercise checked by our teacher and he pointed out the issues he had with them. Firstly, he told us that the scene where the second girl is making the tea needs to establish the character, because right now it makes it look like its the first character who went to make tea. Also, there is a sudden jump in the part where the first character picks up the cup to drink the tea.  Apart from this there was some advice regarding the angles etc. which we are to keep in mind during our shoot.

  Budget 2020 sheet1 from HiraFatimaMallick

 For filming the music video, we will be using the following: camera (Canon EOS 5D Mark IV) tripod handicam reflectors lights We decided that since we also wanted a lo-fi effect in our music video, we would use a handicam where required and deemed suitable. Also, a lot of our filming will be done indoors and in the dark as well so for that we thought it was necessary to use lights and reflectors to achieve the desired lighting.  Now as for the software, we're going to be using Lightroom for editing certain clips if required, and for editing, of course, Premiere Pro.

  Main character/female protagonist:  Tayyaba Fatima Mallick This is Hira's sister, Tayyaba who will be casted as the female protagonist in our video. (Ex) Love Interest: Haadiyah Imtiaz A batchmate of ours.

TEAM ROLES by Fiza Zaheer

Our music video is centered around a female protagonist, and our artist is also a young girl in her late teens. There is a more Westernised representation of the artist. Considering that the indie genre, specifically indie rock, is male-dominated, having a female artist was going against the conventions and provided a bit more diverse representation which we believe is necessary. In Pakistan, the indie industry is very nearly obsolete and is usually revolving around a mix of Western and local representation. Also, the portrayal of teenage girls and women in general in music videos has historically remained more or less similar, focused on glamour and fashion, objectification and hyper sexualisation. Teenage girls specifically are often portrayed as naive and superficial, and in terms of relationships, often hysterical, clingy and over emotional, and this has evolved to become a very common stereotype.  However this representation is gradually changing, perhaps not so much in mainst...

Record Label: NC RECORDS (fictitious) Our artist is going to be associated with NC Records, which is an independent record label that other South Asian independent artists are affiliated with. Considering that the music industry in South Asia, especially in Pakistan is not very developed, this label aims to enhance the exposure of potential indie artists looking for an appropriate platform.  NC Records will also handle the promotion and distribution of the album on various streaming platforms, channels and websites. Production House: Blue Moon Productions (fictitious) Blue Moon Productions will be involved in the concept creation (and of course, production) of the music video, and the creative development of the digipack, as well as in the post-production aspects of the video.  Distribution: According to our survey results, the most popular platform for streaming, listening to and exploring music is YouTube, followed by Spotify, and then other platforms such as  iTunes, S...

Symbolic Codes Symbolism: Flowers These are a recurring motif throughout the music video. We will specifically be using a flower species called butterfly weed, for certain scenes in order establish a connection throughout. This flower means "let me go" or similar alternatives like "leave" and so we decided it was cohesive with our concept.  The girl picks these flowers at the beginning and then in between we see shots of her trying to water these rootless flowers in an empty vase, symbolising how she is trying to flourish and nurture something that possibly can not be. Towards the end we see her disperse these flowers in the wind. Keeping in line with the meaning of the flowers, this scene presents a closure for the protagonist. Eating flowers This symbolises various things and some of the toxic behaviours of our protagonist, which also link with the lyrics. Flower-eating is often linked to an expression of the character's desire for engaging in hedonism ("...

In order to be able to visualise our concept better and to start scouting out locations that would work well with what we had in mind, we decided to make a presentation (assigned to me) of the overall mise en scene of our music video.  Mise en Scene by Fiza Zaheer

 This we decided to assign to Hira. Click the image for the link to the storyboard on her blog.

After we were done with the synopsis and had it approved, my teammates and I started to look for images that went with the vibe of our song - a fair idea of which we had developed while working on the synopsis. We kept saving whatever relevant picture we came across to our Pinterest board and in the end, sorted them out to prevent overcrowding. This is what we finally got:

Click on the image below for the google doc.

 We had multiple different angles from which we could approach this particular song.  One idea suggested by Tehreem was similar to a previous concept that we had though of - that we could show the protagonist and her "sanity" (personified as the protagonist herself, so basically two of the same person). Even though I personally liked where we were headed with that concept, my teammates believed it would be difficult to shoot, in the case of a sudden lockdown which is something we're still anticipating. And also, we would need a protagonist who was really really brilliant at acting. So the mutual though was that even though it was a very good concept and video in our heads, it would most likely be very poorly executed, and so we decided to not go with this one. Maybe some other time :') We decided to go for a more fast-paced concept, which had a simple (pretty cliche in my opinion, but not that that's a bad thing) narrative intertwined within it, showing the story ...

 After we decided our song and had a fair idea of the concept, we took a necessary step of asking permission to use the song for our music video, since it would be published publicly on YouTube, and was the only legal way around avoiding any copyright issues that would result in our video being blocked or other legal issues that we wouldn't know about. We emailed the band's record label, Polyvinyl Records, who own the rights to the song. As for the email itself, I googled a few articles and sample emails to get an idea of how to construct it properly.

 This task was done by Hira. The link to the original thing on her blog is at the end. In my opinion, the song ‘Party Police’ is about a failed relationship, which one party is desperately trying to salvage, using whatever means she has at her disposal. The lyrics of the song ‘i never really know what’s on your mind/is it ever me or just someone you left behind?’ – this to me reflects an uncertainty, an insecurity of our narrator in the relationship. she doesn’t even know how to make sense of it, if he ever really loved her, or is she just a rebound. Moreover, the lines ‘when everyday’s a hurricane/you know there’s something wrong’ show how the relationship has clearly been troubled for a long long time now, even if unclear why – its clear that the relationship has turned sour. The narrator, while knowing all these things, is desperate to keep the relationship going: ‘you don’t have to leave, you could just stay here with me’ and that he should just ‘forget all the party police/we ...

We took the lyrics of the song into consideration while selecting it because we felt that they obviously play a big role in how the music video turns out. So these are the lyrics of the song. Read “Party Police” by Alvvays on Genius

For the two days in which we had decided to split up on the suggestion of our teacher, we all had already considered different songs for ourselves. But after further discussion when we decided to get back together, we seemed to be having doubts about our previous song and so, we chose Party Police by Alvvays as the song for our music video. Hira suggested a different song by Alvvays and from there we explored this avenue even further until we came across Party Police, which we all felt we could work with really well.  The song was released in 2014, as a track in the artist's self-titled album "Alvvays" and is alternative/indie, very much in line with the artist's overall discography.  Here's me writing down the songs we shortlisted (there were a lot more than this).

Remember when I said I learned how to improvise when a pandemic ruins your plans? Well guess who overestimated herself and underestimated Rona. Because here we are, the flaming hot cheetos, pondering over the two options we have: a) We continue to work in a group, for as long as we can at least, and in the case that there is a lockdown imposed, we carry on with the rest of the work individually - whether that be the remaining planning and everything after that, or just the editing that's left. b) We go on our own starting now.  We came to the consensus that it's going to be hard to manage everything on our own and so option A sounded better than compromising the quality of our work and potentially jeopardising everything. In the case of a nation-wide lockdown, which seemed improbable, we would carry out our shoots in limited space (i.e. within the compounds of our home or community). 

 We brainstormed and tried to come up with a concept (one per team member) and proposed our ideas to our teacher.  The song is about a two people in a failing relationship and the lack of communication between them, so the concept I came up with was that we could show two people, either in a romantic relationship or friends (I personally prefer the latter because I feel like it's less cliché), who seem to be in the same place at the same time (videos for references embedded below). However, they don't interact at all, which could portray how even though they're together there is no sort of real connection between them. Towards the end of the video we could show one person acknowledging the other's presence and trying to force some interaction and open up a channel of communication between them. This we could represent by deliberately breaking filming and editing rules. The concept Hira proposed was to include intertextuality throughout the video, including pastiche of v...

Here are the lyrics for our selected track, "What You Like" by Wallows. Read “What You Like” by Wallows on Genius The lyrics revolve around a relationship that seems to falling apart, perhaps because of the lack of communication and understanding between them. However, they do want to try to make it work, with the artist attempting to listen to his partner. 

From here onwards is officially where our planning for the music video begins. Through our research we've gathered sufficient insight and info about the technical aspects of music videos, and more specifically, of our genre and what target audiences expect to see (and what they don't). In this phase we would be making and finalising major decisions regarding our album and video production, and so this is where the real real work begins. A but intimidated, yes, but also looking forward to putting down all the ideas we have in a visual form and doing something I never really imagined I would do. 

We got a surprisingly large pool of 66 people to fill out our survey, so here are the responses, and our team's evaluation and conclusions drawn from them. Since our primary audience is 15-25 year-olds, we targeted them more for the survey and so 84.8% of our respondents belonged to this age group, while 15.2% were our secondary audience, 25-40 year-olds.   YouTube being the most popular response was pretty much expected when we gave the three top options, considering how big and accessible of a platform it is.  However, this certainly did not mean that we could limit the distribution of our music video and album to just a single platform, no matter how popular it is, because other platforms also tend to have a substantial number of frequent users. Apart from distribution we decided to include questions about the production of the video too so that it would give us more perspective when starting our planning section. Even though conceptual-based music videos appear to be more ...

It's important to get an idea of what our audience wants to see the most and what expectations they hold. No better way to do that than a simple sweet survey. Loading…

Since every media product has a particular market for whom it is primarily intended for, my team members and I evaluated the target audience for our album as well according to the market segmentation. Geographic Primary market: major cities of Pakistan (Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad) This is because Pakistan is the place of origin of the artist, and so the album will be primarily be promoted here, for instance through local radio and television channels. The target market in Pakistan would be a very niche audience, since this isn't the sort of music that's commonly heard here at all and so it would be a bit challenging to promote the artist here. The secondary audience would of course be international since music now, especially indie music, is released online on streaming platforms such as YouTube, SoundCloud and Spotify, which have a large global userbase.  Demographic Primary age group: 15-25 Secondary age group: 25-40 Gender: no specific gender Social class: Middle and upper c...

 Market Segmentation Every media product has a market towards which it is targeted. These are the people that will potentially avail or enjoy the product. This is why those looking to bring their product into public attention and get it enough attention need to be fully aware of the kind of people they will primarily be aiming for. Market segmentation defines the "kind of people" since it's a very broad and vague phrase.  Segmentation is done on multiple basis. The main criteria for any segment is that there should be defining attributes that make it starkly different from other segments (i.e. distinction), there should be a consistency in attributes of individuals across the segment (homogeneity), and lastly the people within the segment should have similar attitudes towards a certain product (reaction). It is on the basis of these criteria that the market is further divided into categories: 1) Geographics This is pretty direct and easy to classify because the target mar...

 This is area 2 of Hira's research.

This was on of the areas of extensive genre research that Hira worked on. (click the image for her blog post)  

        Codes and Conventions in            Alternative/ Indie Rock Music Videos Type of Music Video Indie rock music videos appear to be predominantly performance-based, however several indie artists explore conceptual and narrative-based videos as well.  Performance-based: Everytime // boy pablo This music video is purely performance-based, showing the band performing in one fixed location, with no other interventions. Are You Bored Yet // Wallows (ft. Clairo) This music video adds a slight twist in performance as, apart from band members performing on the stage, the crowd is shown lip-syncing the song with vague (almost blank) expressions. Conceptual-based: Graffiti // CHVRCHES This music video revolves around the artist reminiscing her first love, and contains various sequences of her and the aforementioned first love. The use of elements such as floating objects or people that recur throughout the video add to the overall conce...

 My team members an I divided our research and took two areas each - one easier and one lengthy. This is my presentation on the easy area of research, "Popular Artists and Albums in Indie/Alt Music" White Simple and Colorful Geometric Company Culture Book Presentation by Fiza Zaheer

 So this was a rather quick and easy process. In the first 15 minutes of the team discussion, we came to the unanimous consensus on the genre, which would be *cue drumroll* alternative/indie rock.  Yes. There is still a massive debate (for reasons beyond my comprehension) on whether indie should be considered a genre, but I personally believe that the style, vibe, element and everything that that particular music has evolved to possess can very much only be described as "indie". You can't not listen to an indie song and not be able to tell what it is. (There are more well-fledged arguments that I won't get into (for now)). So, indie or independent music had been around since perhaps the 60s, but was mostly composed of underground groups and performers, being officially recognised in the 70s, and then receiving a popularity boost in the 80s. The term at that point was used to refer to post-punk and new wave music labels. It was also seen as something very counter-cultu...

A genre is obviously one of the most important elements involved in the making of music. It is the way in which the various kinds and styles of music are characterised, with artists developing their own particular genre style.  This categorisation of music into genres is done on the basis of several distinguishable factors, including the style of music, and the generic conventions and expectations that it follows. Some of the most mainstream genres include pop, hip-hop/rap, country and rock. All the music in these genres will have certain factors that distinguish them clearly from the others, for example, rock will have a clear use of electric guitars, drums, bass and the music overall is loud and distinct. The genre of the music largely determines the music video's style. Rock music videos are more performance-based. Hip-hop and rap music videos will also have certain stylistic elements that make them stand out and define them as a genre, even without the music - casual street-sty...

  Made with  Visme Presentation Maker

  Made with  Visme Presentation Maker

  This is one of my favourite song and music videos from all that I've seen so far. (P.S. This was my first time using slides.com so the arrangement of slides ended up being a bit confusing so pro tip: click the " ↓ " arrows first before the " →" arrow, wherever they appear)

We discussed the way in which popular artists present themselves to the world, aka their "star image", which plays a major role in their popularity and how they're perceived. To study this in greater detail I chose to look into Billie Eilish because I find her aura as an artist really interesting and dynamic.

  Music videos all share certain elements and styles, or "formulas" according to which they are filmed, and they all seem to have specific effects that they try to achieve. Theorists have sorted this out for us and highlighted some patterns that are detected in music videos. After watching a presentation and doing our research about major theories, our class got a checklist of different theories and elements that we need to look out for.  After watching 2738 music videos (again) I managed to select three that I felt were different from each other, and hence shows the relevance and significance of theories. The music videos I selected are: Not OK (Kygo and Chelsea Cutler) ON (BTS) Me & You Together Song (The 1975) Made with  Visme Presentation Maker

Codes and Conventions by Fiza Zaheer

  Music videos generally follow a specific pattern or somewhere around the pattern, so it's actually pretty difficult to categorize them strictly into groups. STANDARD PATTERN The standard pattern is an amalgamation of elements that we commonly observe in almost every music video - a bit of performance in the form of simple choreography or lip-syncing, a story, or a series of events or a particular event broken up and shown at various points throughout the video, and of course, a music video can't be made without having a concept. Who's Laughing Now Ava Max This music video has all the elements present in most music videos, hence following a standard pattern. It looks like the outline or blueprint of a basic, generic music video to me. The video has pieces of non-linear narrative bits, choreography and lip-synced performance in various locations, and editing which transitions quickly from one scene to another. 2. gogobebe Mamamoo This music...

Music has evolved greatly over a long period of time. The following presentation is an overview of how music videos have transitioned:

There doesn't have to be a point, you love them. If you don't, you do . In the music industry as we know it today, music videos have become a vital part of it, especially with platforms like YouTube (which we're all very much familiar with) that cater to streaming music videos. Apparently 55% of YouTube users watch music videos everyday (it's me, I'm users). The significance of music videos can be observed in the way award shows now have categories for them - Best Visual Effects, Best Cinematography and there's too many to list. So, I daresay, for people of mainstream pop-culture, it's grown to become a competition with artists setting and breaking records for views. Music videos, though initially made to promote artists or films, do a lot more than just that now. Prominent artists, with their large fanbases, in the industry dominate charts worldwide each time they make a comeback and drop an MV. These music videos address a variety of things: They could add...