Mockup: iTunes

Below is a mockup of how my album would appear if someone were to listen to it on iTunes, a popular service where customers can purchase and listen to music.

Mockup: Streaming

Below is a mockup I created of how my album would appear if someone were to listen to it using the popular streaming service Apple Music.

Print Artefacts: Album Digipak

Planning: Final Proposal

Having compiled all of the pre-production resources for my project, I am ready to now make my final proposal. The title of my production is:  Callum Byrne - Nowhere Man (Music Video).
I believe that my music video would be best suited to be shown, primarily, on YouTube. 95 of the 100 most-viewed videos on the YouTube platform are music videos, and 91 of these have over 1 billion views. In the modern day, YouTube has become the prime platform for hosting and viewing music videos. Another greatly popular service, on which music videos are hosted and viewed, is Apple Music. The Apple Music service is available on iPhone and iPad devices, along with the iTunes application on PC and Mac. Despite primarily being a music-only streaming service, Apple Music also allows artists to host their music videos. This would provide a fantastic platform for me to host my music video to a large number of potential viewers from across the world.
The target audience for my music video is young people aged 18-25. This is because the video will feature a young protagonist whom I believe people of this age range would be able to relate to. Also, targeting this specific age group would allow them to potentially be exposed to a genre and style of music that is not as popular in today's culture as it once was. I believe that the video would be best appeal towards the white, working class population. This is because the character portrayed in the video is a young, lonely boy who does not particularly represent the middle or upper class, and that the artist, along with the character in the video, are of the White-British ethnicity.
The genre of the song I have chosen for my music video is a blend of classic rock and soul. For this reason, I believe that the video must have a particular visual flavour attributed to it, which can be achieved through colour-grading, shot composition, lighting and also editing. This style that I am aiming to achieve can be described as a vintage style. This is achieved through a focus on particularly 'autumnal' colours such as heavy browns and dark greens. This colour palette also harkens back to the colours on the cover of the Beatles' Rubber Soul (1966) from which I have drawn the song for my project. The colours in the video will be vital in establishing tone early on, and manipulating visual elements such as contrast and saturation can also contribute to this.
The lyrical contents of the song I have chosen provide a basis for a narrative element to my music video. The lyrics focus on one, nameless man, and his struggles with feeling alone and lost in the world. Because of this, I can explore a variety of different themes in my video, such as loneliness, seclusion and adolescence. In terms of speed, I believe that the tempo of the song warrants a slow, and thoughtful pace for the accompanying video. The song features a guitar solo that lasts for approximately 40 seconds. During this, it may be appropriate to up the speed of the video, either with a montage sequence or with an increased pace to the video's events.

Planning: Storyboards

Filming: Permissions

During my production stage, I will conduct filming on two distinct locations. One of these is my own home, and the other is the Tameside Local Nature Reserve in Tamworth. I am free to get footage inside my own home, however I had reservations about what the law has to say regarding filming in the nature reserve. To clear this up, I researched the topic, and came across an organisation known as The IAC, a film & video institute devoted to promoting amateur filmmakers.

Taken from theiac.org.uk, the IAC have the following to say on the matter:

"Amateur movie makers, whether IAC members or not, are unlikely, in the course of normal movie making in a public place, to have any problems with the police unless they are causing an obstruction. Neither members of the media nor the general public need permits to film or photograph in public places and police officers have no power to stop you filming or photographing incidents or police personnel."

Taking this into account, it appears that I will not need any permissions for filming during the course of my production phase. This is relieving, and means I can proceed with filming as scheduled.

Filming: Equipment

In terms of equipment, I will need a minimal amount of props and tools, as my video is very personal and minimal in its scale. The main piece of equipment required is, of course, the camera. I have decided that the camera I will use for the majority of my filming will be that of an iPhone 6S. On the popular camera quality measurement website DxOMark.com, this camera was awarded a score of 84, ranking it 13th on their table of all phone cameras (as of 2017). However unconventional it may seem to use a mobile phone for principal photography, I can have no doubts about the image quality, and using a phone means that I constant access to my camera to shoot footage whenever the need be.
In terms of props, one of the key factors will be in costume. The protagonist will wear 'woodland', autumnal colours of brown, beige and green. This is in order to create a visual palette which gives the video a distinct 'look', and is also in homage to the album cover for Rubber Soul (1965), which utilises a similar colour palette. I will of course also be using a tripod for my filming. The tripod allows the camera to be stable during shots, and the handle allows for panning, which can be useful for establishing shots. As the iPhone does not have a built in tripod mount, so I will have to use a mount. In anticipation of this, I have acquired such a device from Amazon, the 'Universal Smartphone Tripod Adapter' by Mudder. This was not an expensive purchase, and provides a great and necessary tool for my production. The particular tripod I will be using was the AmazonBasics 60-inch Lightweight Tripod.