Storyboard + Lyrics

This blog consists of the storyboard of the music video project, component 3. This blog was made by our team member Tisha

Storyboard
A storyboard is used to plan how visuals will appear within a media product. It is especially important for this project because music

videos often rely on a clear storyline to convey their meaning. Creating a storyboard helps to organize the narrative and allows the audience to understand the message and feeling that is being shown more effectively.

I have created several storyboards in the past, including one for my previous documentary project, which can be found here:
https://tisha-regentsmedia.blogspot.com/2025/08/storyboard.html (This is a link that will open my blog that consist my previous storyboard)

Draft Idea 

Before I start on making the storyboard, me and my team decided to sit together while listening to the whole song to understand how

the mood will change throughout the song.

1st draft idea that was made as a group

After this discussion, we decided to start creating a simple plotline that will happen in several places as we are planning to show dates from the couple. In which this is the final draft that I focus on to create the storyboard from.

Last draft idea of the music video discuss as a group

Lyric Sheet Idea

As music videos create their story / visuals that they want to show not in order, this would mean that creating a storyboard for this project would be different from my previous storyboard that I have made. So we decided to plan the whole music video based on the lyrics of the song.

Lyric Sheet by Jyotisha

From this lyric sheet planning, we can see how the draft ideas started to come to life by arranging them to fit the song lyrics, which eventually developed into a full plotline. Making this lyric sheet was very useful because it allowed different scenes to be planned even if they were not in order. It would have been difficult to draw scenes that jump between different moments without following a clear sequence, so the lyric sheet was extremely helpful.
This process in creating the lyric sheet made the overall idea of the music video become easier as I could experiment with how each scene connects to the meaning of the lyrics.

To create an even deeper understanding of the lyric sheet me and my team decided to create a whiteboard. This whiteboard purpose is to add visuals like photographs and videos that matches the idea from the planning inside the lyric sheets.

Lyrics Sheet Storyboard by Jyotisha

Online Storyboard 

As my previous storyboard was hand-drawn, I decided to explore other methods to create a clearer and more easily visualised storyboard. That’s when I found an online application called ShotStager, which allowed me to present my ideas in a more organised and professional way. The platform includes useful features such as simple scene layouts and camera movement previews, which helped me understand how each shot would look in the final music video.

Here is how the ShotStager interface appears:

ShotStager interface appearance

As you can see, this version is much more complete and the process of creating a digital storyboard was very effective and I enjoyed working with it. The digital tools like the marker to draw the simple location and the camera movement and character placement helped me visualise the camera movement and camera angles that I have used in the scene which strengthened my overall planning.

Here is the final online storyboard I developed in the application ShotStager. I included the song in the background to help create a clearer sense of the mood and pace that the music video will follow.

Final Storyboard 

Even though making the online storyboard was very useful with all the features, there are limitations like how the location and props look like in the scene. So I decided to also hand-drawn the storyboard as it allows a more in depth visuals of the storyline and plot but only the visual and not how the camera movement is seen in the scene. 

This is the final storyboard of the music video.

Hand-drawn Storyboard by Jyotisha

Reflection: Even though I didn't draw the storyboard, I still contributed by giving ideas during the drafting process and I actually enjoyed that part a lot. Brainstorming scenes with my group helped us understand the flow of the music video better. Working together on the storyboard and lyrics also made everything clearer because we could visualize how each scene would look like and avoid misunderstandings.

Moodboard

 This blog post contains the mood board for our music video project, this mood board was created by Cassie and Kellie, and this blog post was created by me (Kimora)

A mood board is a visual tool that helps guide the overall look and feeling of a media product. It gathers images with similar styles or colours to show the aesthetic we want to achieve. For our music video, the mood board helps everyone on the team understand the same creative direction and stay consistent with the tone and atmosphere we are aiming for.

For this project, we chose the song POV by Ariana Grande, which has a soft and emotional feeling. The music and lyrics focus on love and connection, so we decided to build our visuals around two characters and the moments shared between them. Each mood board highlights a different aspect: Ellie, Karl, the couple together, and the locations where their dates take place.

Characters:

• Ellie Collins
  
  Ellie is a girl who enjoys quiet moments, she loves sunsets, reading, taking photos and spending time with nature. Even though she's introverted, she becomes warm and expressive once she feels close to someone. That's why her mood board includes soft lighting and pictures of people smiling in a genuine way. She also feels appreciated through food or small gifts, so these elements appear in her visuals too.

(Ellie's Mood Board)

• 
  
• Karl William
  On the other hand, Karl has a darker and more gloomy aesthetic. His mood board uses deeper tones and dim lighting to match his personality. He may look serious, but he has a gentle side that only shows up around people he really cares about, like Ellie. He likes to make Ellie laugh and capture the moments they spent together, so a part of his mood board will show him being thoughtful and playful at the same time.
  
  
  
  (Karl's Mood Board)
  
  

• The couple together
  The kind of couple we are trying to portray is a couple who can be mature in the right situations but still enjoy doing silly or childish activities together like going on arcade dates or simple activities like splashing each other in the beach. They're the type to be able to create memorable memories in any kind of place, like from a simple stroll around the neighborhood to romantic dates in the restaurant. They love to capture the most simplest moments to be treasured and to be looked back at in the future. 

(The Couple's Mood Board)

Locations:

• Their Dates
  The couple enjoy simple and spontaneous dates where they can have fun and create memorable memories from any kind of date spot, from a simple walk around the park to spontaneous motorbike rides. We plan to go for this aesthetic to create more feeling and allow the audience to relate to these scenes. We focus on a vintage and retro vibe, we plan to show this through the couple going on a record player cafe date, taking vintage photobooth photos and using a vintage digital camera to capture simple moments in their dates to conform to this aesthetic.
  
  
  
  (The Couple's Dates)
  
  

Collaboration Platform => Pinterest

Pinterest is a platform that provides images or videos where we can save them as inspirations. To create our mood boards, we first made a shared Pinterest board that all our group members can access and put in photos or videos that matches our music video or character's aesthetic. 

Using Pinterest to create our mood board is very useful, we can find a picture or video that is suitable for the music video's aesthetic and below it, it shows more visuals that have a similar vibe or aesthetic, therefore its easier to find a style or aesthetic we will go for. The collaboration feature is also very important as it allows us to visualize the same idea for the characters. 

(This is a screenshot of our Pinterest collaborative page)

Reflection: Overall I really enjoyed the process of collecting ideas for the mood board, It allowed me to visualize and develop more ideas that we can implement in our music video. Other than that, I really liked the collaborative feature of the platform as we can compile all our ideas into one board. It makes it simpler and easier for us to have the same idea of the music video and not have any misunderstandings. 

Classwork: Persona

This blog post contains our group's plan on our artist's persona, this presentation was made by everyone as we split tasks between each member, but overall Cassie added more work for the presentation.

Classwork: Persona by Jyotisha

Reflection: Overall by doing this classwork, it helped me understand more about persona, how different people have different personas and how each person has their on-screen and off-screen persona. By doing a research about different artist's persona, we get to find inspirations of how our artist is going to be portrayed. This made it more easier for us to match the visuals and aesthetics of the music video with the artists.

Classwork: Editing

 This blog post contains a classwork on an attempt to edit with the technique cut to the beat.

In class, we were given an editing classwork on how to cut to the beat. In this classwork I was working with Tisha and Kellie. We were given footage and photos that were taken during our school's fun run event and we were given the chance to choose our own song. There were two google drives that contained photos and videos that were taken during the event and we had to pick several photos and videos for our classwork.

This is a presentation explaining my progress as well as containing the finished video for the classwork

Classwork: Cut to the Beat by kimora

Reflection: Even though I didn't take part in the editing process, this classwork helped me understand how important editing techniques like cutting to the beat are in making a video more engaging. By working with my group and observing the process, I was able to see how selecting the right clips and matching them with the music can affect the overall flow and mood of the video. This gave me a better understanding of how editing contributes to the final product, which will be useful for my own project.

Statement of Intent

 This blog post contains the Statement of Intent for the Component 3

Reflection: by creating this statement of intent, it allows us to brainstorm possible ideas of how our music video is likely going to be, we thought about our target audience and how to portray our artist. Overall, this made us set a certain theme or direction for our music video, i also think that by giving a deadline to the statement of intent helped us quickly think of our music videos intent and so that we can follow this statement when making our music video.

Pre-production: Genre Research

 This blog post contains the genre research I did for my music video project

Genre Research - Music Video by Kim

Here is a list of the music videos I will be researching:

1. Miss Independent - Ne-Yo

2. Toronto 2014 - Daniel Caesar

3. Empire State of Mind - JayZ ft. Alicia Keys

4. Luther - Kendrick Lamar & SZA

5. With You - Chris Brown

6. No Scrubs - TLC

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1. Miss Independent - Ne-Yo

The target audience for this music video is primarily young adults aged 18-30 years, and those in urban or professional lifestyles. The music video can appeal to females as it portrays women as empowered and successful, rather than being objectified. This creates a sense of inspiration, which allows the audience to admire the women’s independence. 

In this music video, women are represented as confident and self-reliant, which is shown through costumes and mis-en-scene. Women are presented with fashionable office attire and sleek hairstyles and are in an office environment, overall this connotes wealth and ambition. This representation challenges traditional gender stereotypes where men have more dominance and power in society. While men are represented as respectful and admiring the women for their success and independence. This subverts to the male gaze, where women are objectified for visual pleasure. In this music video, women are instead being admired for their achievements rather than their appearance.

The camera angels used are close-ups, which highlights Ne-Yo’s expression which can connote admiration. Medium shots are also used to show the women in the workplace, the medium shot can show the woman’s appearance while also showing its surroundings, overall this gives a sense of professionalism in the workplace. The mise-en-scene shows a setting of a modern office interior, with props like laptops and files, overall this visually connotes a professional and successful workplace. The lyrics also enhance the women’s self reliance (“She got her own thing, that's why I love her”) it conveys men’s admiration based on the women’s capability. The editing is slow paced and matches the rhythm of the song, which can keep the audience engaged to the music video.

The music video conforms to R&B conventions through its storyline’s focus on love and admiration, it also conforms as it has performances, where Ne-Yo lip-syncs to the camera. However, it subverts the genre conventions as it focuses on respect and equality towards women unlike most R&B music videos where women are being objectified and sexualized. What I liked about the music video was that it was mainly about admiring and respecting women for their efforts and independence which is pretty rare in most music videos, what I disliked was that there wasn't much narrative, and instead there were more shots of the artist lip-syncing.

2. Toronto 2014 - Daniel Caesar

The target audience for this music video is mainly young adults aged 18-30 years, especially those who enjoy soulful R&B and emotional storytelling. The music video can appeal to people who appreciate meaningful lyrics and realistic representations of identity. The visuals of both Sudan and Toronto make it relatable for multicultural audiences who have had experiences in those locations. 

In this music video, black and muslim communities are represented as spiritual and proud and are deeply connected to their roots. The video features scenes from Sudan that highlight family, prayer and cultural life which portrays these groups as rich in culture. This challenges common stereotypes in Western media that often associate black or muslim groups with conflicts or struggle. Instead, the music video shows a strong cultural pride and celebrates heritage.

The camera technique used was a handheld camera shot, this is to make the visuals feel more personal and authentic. The mise-en-scene shows Sudanese streets, mosques and Toronto neighborhoods, which connotes a cultural contrast between the two locations. The sound used was a soft melody which supports the visuals and lyrics about home and identity. The editing is slow paced, and follows the rhythm of the song which allows the audience to connect more deeply with the song. 

The music video conforms to R&B conventions through its slow pace and warm/soft lighting, which creates a calm and reflective atmosphere. However, it subverts conventions by not including a romance storyline, instead it focuses on culture and identity. What I liked about this music video was how it uses handheld camera angles to show the artist in his daily activities, which adds realism to the music video. What I disliked about this music video was that there wasn’t much narrative shown, this could make it harder for some audiences to follow and understand the story. 

3. Empire State of Mind - JayZ ft. Alicia Keys

The target audience for this music video is primarily young adults aged 18-30 years, especially those living in urban areas or have an appeal to city lifestyles. The video appeals to both male and female audiences as it promotes the themes of success and pride which many young adults can relate to. This creates a sense of aspiration and belonging which allows the audience to admire New York City as a symbol of dreams and opportunities. 

The representation of JayZ is confident and ambitious which connotes a character with power and influence. His appearance and posture can present him as a figure of authority and achievement, which symbolizes the success that can come from hard work. Alicia Keys is represented as an inspirational figure, her vocal performance can convey emotion and pride to the audiences, which also promotes a sense of equality between males and females. New York City is represented as a vibrant environment full of culture. This representation promotes the ideology of self belief which shows New York as a place where anyone can succeed regardless of their backgrounds. 

The camera angles used in the music video are mostly establishing shots, which shows New York City from a wide and high perspective to emphasize its size and energy. The mise-en-scene includes recognizable urban landmarks such as bridges, skyscrapers and city lights, which can connote aspiration and success. The music video is presented mostly in black and white, which gives a classic and timeless look, which reinforces New York’s strong cultural identity. The props such as taxis, subways and street lights are visual codes of city life, which can enhance the connection to the environment of New York City. The lyrics also promote and celebrate New York City as a city full of ambition and hope. The editing used was cut to the beat, in the intro they showed many pictures of New York City followed by the beat of the song, which can engage the audience to the song and vibe.

The music video conforms to R&B conventions through its mix of performance and narrative, by using urban settings to reflect real life experiences. However it subverts typical R&B conventions by not focusing on love, heartbreak or relationships and instead it celebrates city pride and ambition. What I liked about this music video is the cut to the beat during the beginning of the music video. I think it would be great to use that method in my music video project. What I disliked about the music video was that there was little storytelling and more performances from the artists, this can make the audience lose interest as the music video is progressing to the end.

4. Luther - Kendrick Lamar & SZA

The target audience for this music video is primarily young adults aged 18-30 years. The video appeals to audiences who value storytelling and relationships, it can attract people who appreciate meaningful portrayals of love and connection. 

In this music video, couples are represented as emotionally vulnerable and expressive. Both male and female figures are shown with equal emotional depth, which challenges traditional gender stereotypes where men are seen as dominant and women as vulnerable. Black individuals were also represented as expressive and confident, this is shown through the mise-en-scene such as fashionable outfits and bold body language. 

The camera angles used are close-ups and medium shots, which highlights the artists’ facial expressions and emotions, which creates intimacy between them and the audience. The mise-en-scene includes trendy and fashionable clothing which can represent modern youth culture. One of the sounds used was a diegetic sound of footsteps and the sound of a door opening, during this scene the song pauses, this is to enhance the storytelling and engage the audience to the music video. The editing is slow paced and matches the rhythm of the song, which enhances the emotional vibe of the song and music video.

The music video conforms to R&B conventions as it focuses on romance and emotional storytelling. However, it subverts conventions by not objectifying women and instead choosing to focus on emotional connection and vulnerability. What I liked about the music video was its visuals such as the settings and lighting which enhances the storytelling of the music video. What I disliked was that the narrative felt abstract at some scenes, which could make it hard for some audiences to interpret and understand the story.

5. With You - Chris Brown

The target audience for this music video is primarily young adults aged 18-30 years. The song appeals to people who relate to young love and those who enjoy romantic and emotional stories about love and connection. 

The music video represents Chris Brown as a kind and sincere character which shows a softer and more emotional side of masculinity. His body language and direct eye contact with the camera connotes vulnerability, allowing the audience to see a more emotional and caring version of a male figure. This challenges traditional stereotypes where men should appear more dominant and strong. The overall representation of love is pure and honest which highlights emotional connections. 

The camera angles used were close-ups and medium shots to capture Chris Brown’s expressions and movements, this can connote a feeling of emotional engagement to the audience. The mise-en-scene consists of public spaces like streets or buses, casual clothing and natural lighting which can make the music video appear more realistic and relatable. The sound used were soft melodies paired with emotional lyrics, this combination can enhance the emotional feeling towards the audiences. The editing is slow paced and it follows the rhythm of the song to keep the audience engaged and follow the plot of the story.

The music video conforms to R&B conventions through its focus on love and performance. It has a mix of both performance from the artist and storytelling. However, it subverts the conventions by not showing a luxury or a wealthy image to the characters, unlike typical R&B music videos, this one only focuses on a simple and ordinary lifestyle. What I liked about the music video was that it showed relationships in a sincere and simple way which can make it look more authentic to the audience. What I disliked about the music was that it lacked narrative in the music video, it was mainly in one area and the scenes were not progressive.

6. No Scrubs - TLC

The target audience for this music video are mainly young women aged 16-30 years and audiences who value messages of empowerment and independence. This music video can also appeal to women who reject inequality in relationships and live up to strong and confident female figures. 

In this music video, women are represented as powerful and united. Each member is shown wearing futuristic metallic outfits which can connote strength and individuality. These representations challenge traditional gender stereotypes where women are often shown as dependent or are objectified. Instead, TLC represents themselves as dominant and self reliant which can inspire their audience to feel the same way too. The lyrics also reinforce this representation (“I don’t want to scrub”) by rejecting men who lack ambition and respect, this shows that women have the right to set high standards and boundaries.

The camera angles used include low angle shots that connotes power and a sense of authority. Medium shots showing the full group are also used to highlight unity. The mise-en-scene features a high-tech environment with strong lighting and geometric designs which symbolises empowerment. The sound is upbeat and matches the performance style of the group. The editing is fast paced and uses cut to the beat, it reflects the strong and confident energy of the song. 

The music video conforms to R&B conventions through showing performance and choreography. However, it subverts conventions by focusing on female empowerment instead of romance or male admiration. Moreover, the music video didn’t show any narrative and fully shows performance. What I liked about the music video was its futuristic visuals and that it has a strong feminist message that inspires confidence in female audiences. What I disliked was that it had limited variety in setting which made some parts feel visually repetitive.

Reflection: throughout this research i get to understand deeper about typical genre conventions of R&B music videos, overall, this helped me gain ideas of what to possible include in my group's music video project. The process of finishing this research took me more time then expected, initially i wanted to finish it in two weeks, but i still ended up finishing the last research the night before the submission day.