Music Video Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
We developed the forms and conventions of a real media product by first of all researching the conventions of real up and coming indie band of today. The genre of our music video was important in the production. To make our product as authentic as possible we largely based our production on the live performance, tying in some narrative which related to the lyrics. We used the same location for both the performance and narrative so that our audiences would relate to both and be alble to follow along with the plotline. Our video had a strong female lead just like two of our researched bands ‘The gossip’ and also ‘Paramore’. To make our video as effective as possible, we chose the location carefully and found one that was edgy and rough, just like the look of our band. The costumes were also a big part of the intended genre, these were influenced by the band ‘Paramore’. The lyrics had an impact on the performance and the narrative, the lyrics ‘this ain’’t real’ gave us the idea of making the whole performance and portrayed image abstract and unrealistic, to do this we made Tom look like a mime by painting his face and wearing black and white, this went against normality, to keep to the indie genre he also wore skinny jeans and a tight top. To add interest and make viewing more enjoyable, we made the main female lead costume, colourful in contrast to the black and white mime costume. ***We also challenged the typical conventions of a real indie band by having our narrative linked to some of the lyrics, which is unusual in such a performance based genre. We also challenged the usual indie conventions by using final-cut and duplicating Tom (our mime character) in some scenes highlighting the lyrics again ‘this ain’t real’, by each performer on screen being the same person.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The combination of both our ancillary texts and main product is very effective. We made sure that both the texts and our main product complimented each other and the audience could make reference between them and be able to recognise one from the other. We also wanted to carry through the conventions and genre of our indie band. To do this we did many things; to continue the atmosphere and theme of the music video, whilst filming we took many posed and natural photo’s of the band (Tom and I) on location. The photo’s could also be given as a freebie (behind the scenes photo’s and the making of) These we used in both the poster and the digipak. The idea of having one continuous landmark that could then be a trademark of our band was founded when we stumbled upon a rusty old car that we thought looked really edgy and unrealistic (perfect for our bands image) this we used in both ancillary texts. This consistent image shown in all aspects of our product challenges the mainstream styles of music, again bringing in the conventions of an abstract indie band. To make our poster look more real and professional we used many well known labels and franchises that fitted the genre. Using ‘NME’ showed that our band was in the indie rock scene of today and was accredited by them. We also used ‘NME’ as our magazine rating, as ‘NME’ being such a popular magazine to our target audience we thought it would be a good idea to have a rating from them, we realised our original 5* rating was a bit too ambitious we took it down to 4*, this stemmed from the feedback we gathered. This was also shown in the use of ‘myspace.com’ as our sponsor, we chose ‘myspace’ because this is where many of the up and coming indie bands put up tracks and where we would find our largest online fan base, we chose not to use ‘facebook’ because it is a more family network website whereas myspace is more edgy and young, this fitted our target audience. Our use of ‘HMV’ on our poster showed where our audience could purchase our product in a popular store, this was part of our marketing campaign. We also develop real media products through the use of the competition in the left hand side of our digipak, this was done as a way to connect and entice the intended audience of unsigned bands and to promote the release of the new album and 2010 tour. The ‘Out Now’ banner we put on the poster shows fans that everything is brand new and they should get it fast, it also promotes the fact that the music video is also on the album invites the viewer to buy it because it gives it an extra unusual factor, we thought this was a good selling point.
To carry on the consistency of our ancillary texts we regulated the fonts we used in the poster and digipak. The font we used for ‘Apollo Station’ acquired from ‘dafont.com’ suited our band because of the messy look it gave. We used the same font and size for both ancillary texts so it was recognisable. The font used for our tour dates and competition was quite childish and scruffy, this linked to our target audience and make it look more personal.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Audience feedback has overall been really positive and very helpful in progressing and making our products better and more suitable for our peers and other audiences. By gathering feedback from our peers we learnt what could be better suited for our target audience. The ages of our peers helped because they were the age band we were initially aiming at. Many said that the poster and digipak were very effective together and would entice them to buy the album because of its striking image. They helped by commenting on some of the lettering being a little hard to read due to the font and how close it was together this lead us to spreading it out and in turn it looked more professional not just appealing. The feedback that we had from the industry was really useful, and ‘Ex Art-editior from Future Music Magazine’ described our ancillary texts as very professional and “the overall design lets me know exactly what kind of band we’ve got here”. This really pleased us because this is what we wanted to achieve. He also commented that the 5*’s we had given our album was unrealistic and far-fetched therefore we changed them to 4*. Also the clarity of the album name wasn’t great so we changed the layout to improve this.
Other comments we received was due to continuity errors in our final cut, these were the split screen looking too obvious due to the light changes, we worked hard to correct this by playing with the colours and got it as good as could be achieved. The feedback has all been helpful and encouraging allowing us to make the most of our products. To allow maximum potential of our feedback, if it was issued earlier it would have allowed us to continually tweak and perfect the final product.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Using new media technologies helped us greatly in the process of making of our final products. Initially we extensively used the internet to research the genre, forms and conventions of the band and the song we were using ‘Be your own PET’ ‘girls on TV’, this proved very useful because we learnt what sort of attitude ‘Be your own PET’ have and gave us an idea on our initial pitch. Other bands were researched for inspiration and reference such as ‘Ok Go’ and ‘Paramore’ . Using the internet for ‘dafont.com’ allowed us to get more interesting fonts not just the normal ‘word fonts’. Also the ‘longroadmedia’ blog was used for blogging and feedback. We posted blogs allowing our group and peers to read, feedback and contribute to ideas and production meetings. The use of camera phones and Bluetooth allowed us to share as a group possible locations and things that we had seen that would add to the overall product, USB sticks were also used for personal blogging and editing at home. Once we began filming we used a camera, tri-pod and C.D player. We used the camera to capture all of the footage needed to edit into our music video. The tri-pod was used for a large variety of shots including low, high, close up, wide-angle and panning, also for all of the performance so that it was steady and precise. We also used the camera hand-held to give the rough/running look, we used this in a lot of our narrative shots. The C.D player was used to enable us to lip-sinc when the footage was uploaded via a flashdrive. After the completion of filming the next step was to use final cut in editing our footage, lip-sinking and adding the soundtrack.
For the two ancillary texts, the most compatible choice was photoshop, this was used to manipulate the images used and to add text and labels to create our final digipak and poster.
We used still cameras to take photos of our location and filming process for the blogging. We also took photo’s of the band member’s having their make up done which we could use for the behind the scenes pictures for the digipak. ITunes was also used for us to first choose our song then to convert it so we could put it onto final cut to produce our music video.
Bryony Craig-Matthews
Daniela Di Raimo's music video evaluation
Evaluation for Music Video
1) We developed forms and conventions of real media products by making our video as realistic and similar to the popular indie genre bands that are the industry today. Our video was strongly based on a live performance, with a strong female lead, and we brought in a narrative in reflection of the lyrics. For example we took the lyrics “my other half wants to run away with me” and shot a scene where the lead female (Bryony) was running away from the band member (Tom).
There was also the line “and this ain’t real”, which gave us the idea of making Tom seem abstract, different and unrealistic. We made Tom look like a mime by painting his face and he wore black and white clothing, to make it seem strange and not real. This needed to be done to show that Tom’s outfit as a mime goes against normality. Tom also wore skinny jeans and a tight hoodie and t-shirt to keep the indie look throughout the band.
The image of the band was important when creating a look and style that was edgy and indie. We got ideas from the bands “The Gossip” and “Paramore”, by going onto Google and finding photos of them and also by searching on YouTube some performances of the band.
We dressed Bryony in the typical indie clothing which consisted of pink leopard print tights and an oversized t-shirt. It was a messy look which looked cool and laid back, and we thought it fit the video perfectly. Our target audience would also wear this sort of outfit so we by choosing something similar to that would make it more appealing to our audience of indie-lovers who are 15+ years old.
Our location for our music video was a run down industrial estate and a forest which had not been taken care of, with various objects in it. We thought of our locations while we were planning as we wanted somewhere edgy, run down and somewhere that looked slightly rebellious, as if we shouldn’t be there. This also goes with the theme of youth rebellion as media stereotypes young indie youths to cause trouble, and we broke this stereotype as our band was only playing instruments and being creative, instead of being destructive.
Our setting was plain and the colours were dull to show a massive contrast between the band members and the background.
In our forest setting, there was an old rusty car that we used in our video and our digipak. We filmed and took photos of our band members in the car, on the car and around the car to show again the rebellious side to them, as it shows that whatever they find they will use.
By using Tom playing an instrument but showing 3 of him was effective and challenged forms and conventions in media products as it is not usually done as usually the whole band performs rather than just one musician, so we thought it was original and effective in the end.
2) The combination of our main product and ancillary texts was effective as we linked the two in many ways. We used photos from the location we shot the music video to put into the digipak and poster/magazine cover. The shots from the forest weren’t taken for the purpose of the digipak, they were simply taken for behind the scenes shots to put onto our blog, but we then decided, as they looked professional, we could use them in our digipak/magazine cover.
We used the car in our digipak and poster to show a continuous use of it as it symbolises a lot in our video, so we wanted to show this in our digipak and poster too. We thought that it could be recognisable to the audience as Apollo Stations main object in our upcoming videos. Putting these photos into the digipak/magazine cover showed that by buying the CD and poster, the purchaser would then have “behind the scenes” images of the settings that we used. We thought that this was a good selling point as our target audience would care a lot about what they are spending their money on, as they would mostly be students, so they would want some extra’s thrown into the digipak and whatever else they were buying.
We used familiar labels and franchises such as “hmv” to show that popular stores would be stocking our CD and merchandise and they are all high street purchases that anyone can buy. By placing the “hmv” logo on the poster, we thought it looked as if the CD was accredited by “hmv”, therefore good enough to be placed in the store. As “hmv” is a popular and well known place for people to purchase music and other technologies, our target audience would see the logo and instantly recognise it to be a place where up to date music would be sold, therefore this is another selling point.
We also used “NME” as our rating magazine as we thought a phrase or star rating from this magazine would look good on our poster. As it is such a popular magazine for new films, music and other such like popular pass times, it is recognisable to the buyer as a reputable source of information on this sort of subject. Our rating was originally 5 stars, but with feedback we then changed it to 4 as “NME” is tough at ratings so 5 stars was slightly far fetched. “NME” is bought by males and females who are teens and years older as its target audience is rather large, therefore we came to the conclusion that it is the best magazine to put on our poster.
We used myspace.com as our sponsor. Myspace.com is known for promoting unsigned bands as well as signed bands, and from researching this we found that most people went on myspace.com to search for music as opposed to facebook, as that is more of a mellow family site, whereas myspace.com is more of an indie, edgy site. We went with the conventions of a real indie band as we thought their fan base would all be on myspace.com.
The font we used in our poster and CD were the same as we wanted to keep them consistent and graphically recognisable to the purchaser. Apollo Stations’ font is a font we found on dafont.com and we thought it looked edgy, messy and rusty. It suited the band well.
Our tour dates font was also found on the above site and we thought it looked slightly American and reminded us of teenagers due to the simple, hand-drawn and scruffy lettering, therefore also linking to our target audience.
3) We learnt many things from our audience feedback and have used it all to improve our music video and digipak. By gathering feedback from our peers, we changed our video to suit their queries as they are our main target audience – teens of about 17+ years old. We changed our poster/video to make it more appealing, for example we asked our audience which photo they preferred to be on the CD and by process of elimination we found which photo suited the CD the most.
We also had an email from the ex art editor of Future Music magazine. By gathering feedback which was relevant as it’s from someone in the industry, we realised as a production team realise how precise and specific we had to be with our wording, our sizing and where to put certain things. The ex art editor gave us ideas on how to make our poster more appealing, for example we had written down 5 stars as the rating from “NME” but we were told in the email feedback to only put 4 stars as 5 stars was rather extravagant in a newly signed band. We took this into consideration and realised that he was right, therefore changing this.
The ex art editor also mentioned that it was confusing to see the letters “T” and “V” at the right hand side of the TV around Tom’s head, so we changed it by putting the letters either side of the TV. We could then see that it was a lot clearer and we managed to alter this mistake to make it better.
In the email, a quote was “The overall design lets me know what kind of band we’ve got here straight away”. This was our intention and by seeing this written by someone else, it has given us the confidence that we have done our job fulfilling its purpose.
In retrospect, I think we should have probably asked for feedback at the beginning of the project and asked our target audience what they would expect to see after listening to the track, and doing some more research of Be your own PET (the tracks original band) to see what sort of music videos created. But then we thought better of this, as by going against this idea we have made our video more original and we haven’t feared over copying anyone.
The feedback we gathered overall was positive and we think we have created a piece that links well with the target audience.
4) We used media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages by using the internet for most of our project. We first had to use YouTube to search other indie bands such as The Gossip and Paramore to see what kind of videos they had made and also what they were wearing, along with noting down how the live performances were set, staged and delivered. This proved very useful as the information we gathered was relevant to our own music video and we used some ideas from various other videos to combine an overall idea for ours.
We used www.dafont.com to get our fonts for Apollo Stations’ name and tour dates. We thought that all of the fonts on Microsoft Word had been used before and looked slightly boring, so by searching for fonts on the internet made it seem as if they were our own fonts and original to the band. By searching on this website we hoped that nobody had seen the font before and that our band was the first to claim it.
We had to search on Google for our TV image to put around Tom’s face in our poster. This wasn’t easy as we had to keep changing the wording in the search box to find the exact TV that we wanted.
We used the Blogger.com for the planning process to share our ideas if one of us couldn’t make the production meeting, to record plans so none of us would forget ideas and another could develop on it, and to record our progress. It is interesting to look back on our earlier blogs to see how similar and different our music video is now to how we imagined it weeks ago.
Final Cut was used to cut, edit, add and delete sound for our music video. This programme was vital as without it our footage would just be what we captured on camera, which was 35 minutes long. We had to use it and play around with it to get the lip syncing and instrument syncing perfect.
We used Adobe Photoshop to make and edit out magazine cover and CD and to make it look professional. By placing a photo we had taken on our camera into Photoshop, we managed to add fonts, pictures from the internet and various other things to our magazine cover to make it look effective and interesting.
We had to use still cameras to take photos of our location for the blogging. We also had to take photos of our band and location for our digipak and behind the scenes photos. There were photos taken of the band members make up being done to show the process of before doing a live performance and how much time goes into all the fine details.
We also had to use video cameras to capture our music video. We sometimes used a tripod for this, and other times used the hand held effect.
A stereo was used to play the track when we were filming so the band members had something to mime/sing to when we were filming, to get the timing correct.
We used our phones to take photos of the setting and used Bluetooth on the computers to transfer this information onto them, to then put onto the blog or Photoshop.
USB sticks were used to transfer information from one computer to another.
iTunes was also used for us to first choose our song then to convert it so we could put it onto final cut to produce our music video.
We’ve also used Final Cut to combine talking head footage with your final products for the Evaluation.
1) We developed forms and conventions of real media products by making our video as realistic and similar to the popular indie genre bands that are the industry today. Our video was strongly based on a live performance, with a strong female lead, and we brought in a narrative in reflection of the lyrics. For example we took the lyrics “my other half wants to run away with me” and shot a scene where the lead female (Bryony) was running away from the band member (Tom).
There was also the line “and this ain’t real”, which gave us the idea of making Tom seem abstract, different and unrealistic. We made Tom look like a mime by painting his face and he wore black and white clothing, to make it seem strange and not real. This needed to be done to show that Tom’s outfit as a mime goes against normality. Tom also wore skinny jeans and a tight hoodie and t-shirt to keep the indie look throughout the band.
The image of the band was important when creating a look and style that was edgy and indie. We got ideas from the bands “The Gossip” and “Paramore”, by going onto Google and finding photos of them and also by searching on YouTube some performances of the band.
We dressed Bryony in the typical indie clothing which consisted of pink leopard print tights and an oversized t-shirt. It was a messy look which looked cool and laid back, and we thought it fit the video perfectly. Our target audience would also wear this sort of outfit so we by choosing something similar to that would make it more appealing to our audience of indie-lovers who are 15+ years old.
Our location for our music video was a run down industrial estate and a forest which had not been taken care of, with various objects in it. We thought of our locations while we were planning as we wanted somewhere edgy, run down and somewhere that looked slightly rebellious, as if we shouldn’t be there. This also goes with the theme of youth rebellion as media stereotypes young indie youths to cause trouble, and we broke this stereotype as our band was only playing instruments and being creative, instead of being destructive.
Our setting was plain and the colours were dull to show a massive contrast between the band members and the background.
In our forest setting, there was an old rusty car that we used in our video and our digipak. We filmed and took photos of our band members in the car, on the car and around the car to show again the rebellious side to them, as it shows that whatever they find they will use.
By using Tom playing an instrument but showing 3 of him was effective and challenged forms and conventions in media products as it is not usually done as usually the whole band performs rather than just one musician, so we thought it was original and effective in the end.
2) The combination of our main product and ancillary texts was effective as we linked the two in many ways. We used photos from the location we shot the music video to put into the digipak and poster/magazine cover. The shots from the forest weren’t taken for the purpose of the digipak, they were simply taken for behind the scenes shots to put onto our blog, but we then decided, as they looked professional, we could use them in our digipak/magazine cover.
We used the car in our digipak and poster to show a continuous use of it as it symbolises a lot in our video, so we wanted to show this in our digipak and poster too. We thought that it could be recognisable to the audience as Apollo Stations main object in our upcoming videos. Putting these photos into the digipak/magazine cover showed that by buying the CD and poster, the purchaser would then have “behind the scenes” images of the settings that we used. We thought that this was a good selling point as our target audience would care a lot about what they are spending their money on, as they would mostly be students, so they would want some extra’s thrown into the digipak and whatever else they were buying.
We used familiar labels and franchises such as “hmv” to show that popular stores would be stocking our CD and merchandise and they are all high street purchases that anyone can buy. By placing the “hmv” logo on the poster, we thought it looked as if the CD was accredited by “hmv”, therefore good enough to be placed in the store. As “hmv” is a popular and well known place for people to purchase music and other technologies, our target audience would see the logo and instantly recognise it to be a place where up to date music would be sold, therefore this is another selling point.
We also used “NME” as our rating magazine as we thought a phrase or star rating from this magazine would look good on our poster. As it is such a popular magazine for new films, music and other such like popular pass times, it is recognisable to the buyer as a reputable source of information on this sort of subject. Our rating was originally 5 stars, but with feedback we then changed it to 4 as “NME” is tough at ratings so 5 stars was slightly far fetched. “NME” is bought by males and females who are teens and years older as its target audience is rather large, therefore we came to the conclusion that it is the best magazine to put on our poster.
We used myspace.com as our sponsor. Myspace.com is known for promoting unsigned bands as well as signed bands, and from researching this we found that most people went on myspace.com to search for music as opposed to facebook, as that is more of a mellow family site, whereas myspace.com is more of an indie, edgy site. We went with the conventions of a real indie band as we thought their fan base would all be on myspace.com.
The font we used in our poster and CD were the same as we wanted to keep them consistent and graphically recognisable to the purchaser. Apollo Stations’ font is a font we found on dafont.com and we thought it looked edgy, messy and rusty. It suited the band well.
Our tour dates font was also found on the above site and we thought it looked slightly American and reminded us of teenagers due to the simple, hand-drawn and scruffy lettering, therefore also linking to our target audience.
3) We learnt many things from our audience feedback and have used it all to improve our music video and digipak. By gathering feedback from our peers, we changed our video to suit their queries as they are our main target audience – teens of about 17+ years old. We changed our poster/video to make it more appealing, for example we asked our audience which photo they preferred to be on the CD and by process of elimination we found which photo suited the CD the most.
We also had an email from the ex art editor of Future Music magazine. By gathering feedback which was relevant as it’s from someone in the industry, we realised as a production team realise how precise and specific we had to be with our wording, our sizing and where to put certain things. The ex art editor gave us ideas on how to make our poster more appealing, for example we had written down 5 stars as the rating from “NME” but we were told in the email feedback to only put 4 stars as 5 stars was rather extravagant in a newly signed band. We took this into consideration and realised that he was right, therefore changing this.
The ex art editor also mentioned that it was confusing to see the letters “T” and “V” at the right hand side of the TV around Tom’s head, so we changed it by putting the letters either side of the TV. We could then see that it was a lot clearer and we managed to alter this mistake to make it better.
In the email, a quote was “The overall design lets me know what kind of band we’ve got here straight away”. This was our intention and by seeing this written by someone else, it has given us the confidence that we have done our job fulfilling its purpose.
In retrospect, I think we should have probably asked for feedback at the beginning of the project and asked our target audience what they would expect to see after listening to the track, and doing some more research of Be your own PET (the tracks original band) to see what sort of music videos created. But then we thought better of this, as by going against this idea we have made our video more original and we haven’t feared over copying anyone.
The feedback we gathered overall was positive and we think we have created a piece that links well with the target audience.
4) We used media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages by using the internet for most of our project. We first had to use YouTube to search other indie bands such as The Gossip and Paramore to see what kind of videos they had made and also what they were wearing, along with noting down how the live performances were set, staged and delivered. This proved very useful as the information we gathered was relevant to our own music video and we used some ideas from various other videos to combine an overall idea for ours.
We used www.dafont.com to get our fonts for Apollo Stations’ name and tour dates. We thought that all of the fonts on Microsoft Word had been used before and looked slightly boring, so by searching for fonts on the internet made it seem as if they were our own fonts and original to the band. By searching on this website we hoped that nobody had seen the font before and that our band was the first to claim it.
We had to search on Google for our TV image to put around Tom’s face in our poster. This wasn’t easy as we had to keep changing the wording in the search box to find the exact TV that we wanted.
We used the Blogger.com for the planning process to share our ideas if one of us couldn’t make the production meeting, to record plans so none of us would forget ideas and another could develop on it, and to record our progress. It is interesting to look back on our earlier blogs to see how similar and different our music video is now to how we imagined it weeks ago.
Final Cut was used to cut, edit, add and delete sound for our music video. This programme was vital as without it our footage would just be what we captured on camera, which was 35 minutes long. We had to use it and play around with it to get the lip syncing and instrument syncing perfect.
We used Adobe Photoshop to make and edit out magazine cover and CD and to make it look professional. By placing a photo we had taken on our camera into Photoshop, we managed to add fonts, pictures from the internet and various other things to our magazine cover to make it look effective and interesting.
We had to use still cameras to take photos of our location for the blogging. We also had to take photos of our band and location for our digipak and behind the scenes photos. There were photos taken of the band members make up being done to show the process of before doing a live performance and how much time goes into all the fine details.
We also had to use video cameras to capture our music video. We sometimes used a tripod for this, and other times used the hand held effect.
A stereo was used to play the track when we were filming so the band members had something to mime/sing to when we were filming, to get the timing correct.
We used our phones to take photos of the setting and used Bluetooth on the computers to transfer this information onto them, to then put onto the blog or Photoshop.
USB sticks were used to transfer information from one computer to another.
iTunes was also used for us to first choose our song then to convert it so we could put it onto final cut to produce our music video.
We’ve also used Final Cut to combine talking head footage with your final products for the Evaluation.
Tom Jake's Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media product uses the typical live performance convention of existing media products. This is due to the fact that our chosen song, Girls On T.V by Be Your Own PET, was a very heavily instrumental influenced song. The way we develop this convention is by working the narrative around the location of the live performance so both the performance and the plotline are given this sense of merging. Having a narrative also challenges the typical conventions of an instrument based band. Most instrument based bands, for example, Paramore, seem to generally produce mostly instrument based videos, focusing more on the performance of the band as opposed to any storyline that may reside within the lyrics. Having our narrative linked to the lyrics and to the live performance helps challenge the typical conventions. Our ancillary tasks, the digipak and the promotional poster, also use typical conventions. Our chosen song is an Indie song and the ancillary tasks fit in well with the typical indie conventions. The digipak contains images of Bryony and me in an alternative indie environment, i.e. the middle of the woods near a rusted out car. This is typical indie as it is edgy and different and tries to challenge the mainstream style of music. Our poster is also that of a typical indie style as again it shows both Bryony and me in the run down setting. We done this to try and keep consistency so people would recognise our products. The way our digipak develops real media products is through the use of a competition. We introduced a competition within the inside left of the digipak. This was done as a way to connect with the fans of the band as most existing bands have some kind of offer or free gift i.e. poster badges to promote the release of there new album.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The combination of both our main product and ancillary texts worked well as they both complemented each other. There is a scene in our music video which contains Bryony and me running through the woods with the rusted out car in the background. We decided to use the woods and the car as a theme as it fits in with the edgy, alternative convention of the indie rock band. On both our poster and digipak we continued to use the woods and car theme. This would also be used for the benefit of our audiences. Because the theme is recurring audiences and fans would be able to see our products and instantly recognise them and associate them with the band. The recurring theme ties in with bands such as ‘Them Crooked Vultures’ who used the recurring theme of a vultures head on top of a human body. The poster also combines well with the video and digipak as the poster issues an ‘album out now’ label. This would show fans not only who we are but would direct them towards the album which also contains the actual music video. I think the recurring theme of the car and the woods would encourage people who knew of the product to buy it as they would instantly recognise it.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Our audience feedback in general was very positive. However there was one issue at first which received many comments and that was on our splitscreen technique. This involved having three moving images of me on the screen at the same time. We had lined them up and timed them together very well but the issue came with the lighting. A lot of comments were about the natural lighting and how the three splits didn’t quiet match up due to the lighting. This was fixed as best as it could be through adjusting the lighting on the stills. We also received comments on the cuts. To begin with our cuts seemed slow and sloppy and were encouraged to make quick snappy shots. We done this once we had an opportunity to re-film and gain a larger variety of shots. The completed feedback received much positive feedback. Our ancillary texts also received positive feedback. A colleague of our teachers had been sent our promotional poster and commented on it saying they knew what to expect straight away. This means that our idea to create an edgy poster to promote an indie rock band was successful. Our digipak also received positive feedback. We had been told by other media students that it looked like a believable C.D cover that would be sold in shops. There was however the issue of the track listings. Some people struggled to read the font due to the colour of the actual font in contrast to the colour of the background.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used new media technologies throughout the process of creating our music video. Initially we began with the new long road media music video blog. We posted blogs recording our current process as well as using posts to inform of upcoming events such as filming, production meetings etc. We then employed the use of a phone camera and regular camera in order to take photos of the location of which we were going to film. These were later uploaded and placed on the blog. Once filming began we used a camera, a tripod and a c.d. player. The camera was used to capture footage necessary for the music video. We used the tripod in order to gather a range of angled shots, either high or low. The c.d. player was used to play our chosen song so we could easily work out timings once the footage was uploaded. This all had to be uploaded to final cut. We used final cut to cut up footage, lengthen it, shorten it etc. This time we used it to resize frames in order to fit more shots into one. We also had to cut frames in order to get the split screen effect of the three of me. For the ancillary texts we used primarily photo shop. This was used to edit pictures and layout for both our digipak and promotional posters.
Our media product uses the typical live performance convention of existing media products. This is due to the fact that our chosen song, Girls On T.V by Be Your Own PET, was a very heavily instrumental influenced song. The way we develop this convention is by working the narrative around the location of the live performance so both the performance and the plotline are given this sense of merging. Having a narrative also challenges the typical conventions of an instrument based band. Most instrument based bands, for example, Paramore, seem to generally produce mostly instrument based videos, focusing more on the performance of the band as opposed to any storyline that may reside within the lyrics. Having our narrative linked to the lyrics and to the live performance helps challenge the typical conventions. Our ancillary tasks, the digipak and the promotional poster, also use typical conventions. Our chosen song is an Indie song and the ancillary tasks fit in well with the typical indie conventions. The digipak contains images of Bryony and me in an alternative indie environment, i.e. the middle of the woods near a rusted out car. This is typical indie as it is edgy and different and tries to challenge the mainstream style of music. Our poster is also that of a typical indie style as again it shows both Bryony and me in the run down setting. We done this to try and keep consistency so people would recognise our products. The way our digipak develops real media products is through the use of a competition. We introduced a competition within the inside left of the digipak. This was done as a way to connect with the fans of the band as most existing bands have some kind of offer or free gift i.e. poster badges to promote the release of there new album.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The combination of both our main product and ancillary texts worked well as they both complemented each other. There is a scene in our music video which contains Bryony and me running through the woods with the rusted out car in the background. We decided to use the woods and the car as a theme as it fits in with the edgy, alternative convention of the indie rock band. On both our poster and digipak we continued to use the woods and car theme. This would also be used for the benefit of our audiences. Because the theme is recurring audiences and fans would be able to see our products and instantly recognise them and associate them with the band. The recurring theme ties in with bands such as ‘Them Crooked Vultures’ who used the recurring theme of a vultures head on top of a human body. The poster also combines well with the video and digipak as the poster issues an ‘album out now’ label. This would show fans not only who we are but would direct them towards the album which also contains the actual music video. I think the recurring theme of the car and the woods would encourage people who knew of the product to buy it as they would instantly recognise it.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Our audience feedback in general was very positive. However there was one issue at first which received many comments and that was on our splitscreen technique. This involved having three moving images of me on the screen at the same time. We had lined them up and timed them together very well but the issue came with the lighting. A lot of comments were about the natural lighting and how the three splits didn’t quiet match up due to the lighting. This was fixed as best as it could be through adjusting the lighting on the stills. We also received comments on the cuts. To begin with our cuts seemed slow and sloppy and were encouraged to make quick snappy shots. We done this once we had an opportunity to re-film and gain a larger variety of shots. The completed feedback received much positive feedback. Our ancillary texts also received positive feedback. A colleague of our teachers had been sent our promotional poster and commented on it saying they knew what to expect straight away. This means that our idea to create an edgy poster to promote an indie rock band was successful. Our digipak also received positive feedback. We had been told by other media students that it looked like a believable C.D cover that would be sold in shops. There was however the issue of the track listings. Some people struggled to read the font due to the colour of the actual font in contrast to the colour of the background.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used new media technologies throughout the process of creating our music video. Initially we began with the new long road media music video blog. We posted blogs recording our current process as well as using posts to inform of upcoming events such as filming, production meetings etc. We then employed the use of a phone camera and regular camera in order to take photos of the location of which we were going to film. These were later uploaded and placed on the blog. Once filming began we used a camera, a tripod and a c.d. player. The camera was used to capture footage necessary for the music video. We used the tripod in order to gather a range of angled shots, either high or low. The c.d. player was used to play our chosen song so we could easily work out timings once the footage was uploaded. This all had to be uploaded to final cut. We used final cut to cut up footage, lengthen it, shorten it etc. This time we used it to resize frames in order to fit more shots into one. We also had to cut frames in order to get the split screen effect of the three of me. For the ancillary texts we used primarily photo shop. This was used to edit pictures and layout for both our digipak and promotional posters.
Music Video Project Evaluation by Claire Millett
In what ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My media products developed the conventional Indie-Rock ideas behind real media products. For example, Indie-Rock videos are usually performance based to emphasise the importance of a ‘real musician’ in today’s music industry that is continuously undermined by reality television stars. However, our performance was not particularly conventional as we created a band by duplicating the mime character which featured in our video as a link to our narrative which gave the video more depth and interest for the viewer. We made the opening sequence eye catching by using a split screen to introduce the instruments of the song. The singer of the band was focused on through her appearance being bright, colourful and individual which made a strong contrast to the black and white of the mime’s costume. We decided to duplicate the mime character to add to the surrealism of the narrative as it linked to the lyrics “and this ain’t real like the girls on TV”. This factor reflects the lyrics as instead of using a typically dressed boy and making a fairytale romance as found on TV we used the confusing motif of a mime to highlight the singer’s confusion and anxiety. This type of scenario is that of which many listeners are able to relate to which the production group thought was ideal because music is commonly used to influence and inspire its listeners creatively.
Another reason for including a narrative within the video in order to create the image of our band as unique, abstract and avant garde. This is due to the fact that the image of musicians does remain as an important factor as it can be used to market the band and also influences the fans with several artists of today also being known for their personal and often controversial style such as Katy Perry and Lady Gaga. Whilst researching we found several bands such as The Gossip and Paramore influential with the image and style that the videos portrayed. This is because Paramore also feature a woman lead singer making the focus of several of their videos on her and also the band used conventions of live performances and then developed them to create an edgy and unique style. The image of the Gossip was also influential, particularly in the video for ‘Heavy Cross’. The iconic clothes and make up of Beth Ditto made the song powerful and it also featured elements of a live performance. The ideals of the two bands were similar to that of what the group aspired to create.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The two products were designed to compliment each other well and this aim has been achieved. From planning well in advance the group was able to have a photo shoot on set of the music video, this helped with timing later on in the project as it gave us a longer opportunity to edit the images. It also meant the photographs used were of higher quality and the image that was created of the band made the ancillary texts bold, edgy and vibrant. The car, which features in the music video, was also used in the ancillary texts as an iconic and original prop in order to create a link between all of the products for the audience. The digi-pak used similar images to that of the magazine advert which meant that audiences could easily find the album recognisable from seeing the advert. We put an image of a television on the male band member, rather than the female, as a link to the music video of it not being a fairytale romance as seen on television and that the obscure mime character was the lead singer’s own version of that in reality. We also included an ‘out now’ banner on the advert with the HMV symbol so that audiences would be encouraged to go and find the album within those stores.
Usually in the industry, the release of a new album results with a tour to promote it. Because of this, we added tour dates to our magazine advert in hope of creating the image of a realistic and modern Indie-rock band. The competition which features within the digi-pak is given authenticity from the sponsorship of the popular social networking website, Myspace. The website is regularly used by many music fans as well as artists making it an ideal feature for the band to be involved in. Also, the support shown to unsigned bands is designed to create popularity, publicity and success for the band within the industry. In addition to featuring Myspace, we also used references to NME music magazine which we knew to be popular with our target audiences as it is popularly read by Indie-Rock fans and the magazine is renowned for their annual award shows - of which Apollo Station had been awarded best newcomer and four stars for the album – with these factors making the magazine ideal. The font we chose reflected the image of the band as edgy and messy and we found it to be a good symbol of the band which would be recognisable in the industry.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Overall, we received very positive feedback for example “the overall design lets me know exactly what kind of band we’ve got here” (ex-art editor of Future Music Magazine). This was what we wanted to achieve: the image of a band, rather than just a video, that would please the eye of the public and the industry. The feedback we received on the rough cut edition of our video highlighted that our video did not have enough cuts throughout making the pace a lot slower than it needed to be to create an authentic video. For our final cut we made a strong effort to correct this and made the video quicker and also added in a new sequence throughout the instrumental section which we cut to fit the beat – this had a lot of positive feedback for the final cut. Another issue that we had with the rough cut was the split screen looking too obvious due to change in light quality in between takes. For the final cut we corrected the colours to the best of our ability and made the effect much more subtle. Also, for our final cut we included more close-ups of the singer to add more focus onto her as requested from the feedback on our rough cut. Other feedback we received led to rethinking the layout of the magazine advert and also how we would use the features within the ancillary texts such as NME and Myspace to effective but realistic use. For example, we made the text on the NME award headline smaller to put more focus on the band name.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Predominantly, the Internet was our main source for researching the conventional music videos that fitted our genre. This meant that YouTube was particularly useful in addition to the production team’s online blog. The blog was used for analysing other media products, planning production meetings and also documented our progress and changes to the plans we originally made. We also used the blogs to receive peer feedback; this was particularly helpful for taking our first draft to a higher quality for the final edition. Final Cut was the editing programme we used to put together the music video by using several techniques for example, by using a split screen to help make the clips dynamic and punchy. In addition to this the overlapping footage we used to duplicate the mime character played with the conventions of a performance based video. We also used Photoshop to compose the ancillary texts and to create the TV image of the mime’s head. The fonts used were downloaded from the internet using the website www.dafont.com as the fonts we found on a typical word application were not what we wanted and the effect of the downloaded font was much better for the image of the band. Digital photography was also used to document the filming progress, photographs of which we entered onto the blog and also for the photo shoot that took place on set for the ancillary texts. We also used a camera phone to get images quickly and conveniently to other members of the group, something we found particularly useful whilst planning the video shoot. Final Cut was also used to bring the entire video together as we brought together the audio and video using this programme to create our final product and achieved from this an authentic and good standard of video.
My media products developed the conventional Indie-Rock ideas behind real media products. For example, Indie-Rock videos are usually performance based to emphasise the importance of a ‘real musician’ in today’s music industry that is continuously undermined by reality television stars. However, our performance was not particularly conventional as we created a band by duplicating the mime character which featured in our video as a link to our narrative which gave the video more depth and interest for the viewer. We made the opening sequence eye catching by using a split screen to introduce the instruments of the song. The singer of the band was focused on through her appearance being bright, colourful and individual which made a strong contrast to the black and white of the mime’s costume. We decided to duplicate the mime character to add to the surrealism of the narrative as it linked to the lyrics “and this ain’t real like the girls on TV”. This factor reflects the lyrics as instead of using a typically dressed boy and making a fairytale romance as found on TV we used the confusing motif of a mime to highlight the singer’s confusion and anxiety. This type of scenario is that of which many listeners are able to relate to which the production group thought was ideal because music is commonly used to influence and inspire its listeners creatively.
Another reason for including a narrative within the video in order to create the image of our band as unique, abstract and avant garde. This is due to the fact that the image of musicians does remain as an important factor as it can be used to market the band and also influences the fans with several artists of today also being known for their personal and often controversial style such as Katy Perry and Lady Gaga. Whilst researching we found several bands such as The Gossip and Paramore influential with the image and style that the videos portrayed. This is because Paramore also feature a woman lead singer making the focus of several of their videos on her and also the band used conventions of live performances and then developed them to create an edgy and unique style. The image of the Gossip was also influential, particularly in the video for ‘Heavy Cross’. The iconic clothes and make up of Beth Ditto made the song powerful and it also featured elements of a live performance. The ideals of the two bands were similar to that of what the group aspired to create.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The two products were designed to compliment each other well and this aim has been achieved. From planning well in advance the group was able to have a photo shoot on set of the music video, this helped with timing later on in the project as it gave us a longer opportunity to edit the images. It also meant the photographs used were of higher quality and the image that was created of the band made the ancillary texts bold, edgy and vibrant. The car, which features in the music video, was also used in the ancillary texts as an iconic and original prop in order to create a link between all of the products for the audience. The digi-pak used similar images to that of the magazine advert which meant that audiences could easily find the album recognisable from seeing the advert. We put an image of a television on the male band member, rather than the female, as a link to the music video of it not being a fairytale romance as seen on television and that the obscure mime character was the lead singer’s own version of that in reality. We also included an ‘out now’ banner on the advert with the HMV symbol so that audiences would be encouraged to go and find the album within those stores.
Usually in the industry, the release of a new album results with a tour to promote it. Because of this, we added tour dates to our magazine advert in hope of creating the image of a realistic and modern Indie-rock band. The competition which features within the digi-pak is given authenticity from the sponsorship of the popular social networking website, Myspace. The website is regularly used by many music fans as well as artists making it an ideal feature for the band to be involved in. Also, the support shown to unsigned bands is designed to create popularity, publicity and success for the band within the industry. In addition to featuring Myspace, we also used references to NME music magazine which we knew to be popular with our target audiences as it is popularly read by Indie-Rock fans and the magazine is renowned for their annual award shows - of which Apollo Station had been awarded best newcomer and four stars for the album – with these factors making the magazine ideal. The font we chose reflected the image of the band as edgy and messy and we found it to be a good symbol of the band which would be recognisable in the industry.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Overall, we received very positive feedback for example “the overall design lets me know exactly what kind of band we’ve got here” (ex-art editor of Future Music Magazine). This was what we wanted to achieve: the image of a band, rather than just a video, that would please the eye of the public and the industry. The feedback we received on the rough cut edition of our video highlighted that our video did not have enough cuts throughout making the pace a lot slower than it needed to be to create an authentic video. For our final cut we made a strong effort to correct this and made the video quicker and also added in a new sequence throughout the instrumental section which we cut to fit the beat – this had a lot of positive feedback for the final cut. Another issue that we had with the rough cut was the split screen looking too obvious due to change in light quality in between takes. For the final cut we corrected the colours to the best of our ability and made the effect much more subtle. Also, for our final cut we included more close-ups of the singer to add more focus onto her as requested from the feedback on our rough cut. Other feedback we received led to rethinking the layout of the magazine advert and also how we would use the features within the ancillary texts such as NME and Myspace to effective but realistic use. For example, we made the text on the NME award headline smaller to put more focus on the band name.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Predominantly, the Internet was our main source for researching the conventional music videos that fitted our genre. This meant that YouTube was particularly useful in addition to the production team’s online blog. The blog was used for analysing other media products, planning production meetings and also documented our progress and changes to the plans we originally made. We also used the blogs to receive peer feedback; this was particularly helpful for taking our first draft to a higher quality for the final edition. Final Cut was the editing programme we used to put together the music video by using several techniques for example, by using a split screen to help make the clips dynamic and punchy. In addition to this the overlapping footage we used to duplicate the mime character played with the conventions of a performance based video. We also used Photoshop to compose the ancillary texts and to create the TV image of the mime’s head. The fonts used were downloaded from the internet using the website www.dafont.com as the fonts we found on a typical word application were not what we wanted and the effect of the downloaded font was much better for the image of the band. Digital photography was also used to document the filming progress, photographs of which we entered onto the blog and also for the photo shoot that took place on set for the ancillary texts. We also used a camera phone to get images quickly and conveniently to other members of the group, something we found particularly useful whilst planning the video shoot. Final Cut was also used to bring the entire video together as we brought together the audio and video using this programme to create our final product and achieved from this an authentic and good standard of video.
Thursday 3 December 2009
Commentary
To allow all of our the members of our group to feature in the DVD commentary, we may have to use a youtube clip of Tom because he is ill but we still want him to take part. this will also add other elements to our commentary.
Idea's for DVD commentary
For the evaluation of our final products, a DVD commentary is required. Our ideas for this were inspired by the weather forcast on TV:
We wanted to use a green screen like the weather men/women, allowing us to actively show our points within the commentary visually. however due to time restraints this will not be possible. instead we are going to talk into the camera with still images cut in and clips from the video also being shown.
As using a green screen to show pictures will not be possible. we have had the idea of using the magic tool on final-cut which will allow us to put a back ground of our choice behind the clips.
We wanted to use a green screen like the weather men/women, allowing us to actively show our points within the commentary visually. however due to time restraints this will not be possible. instead we are going to talk into the camera with still images cut in and clips from the video also being shown.
As using a green screen to show pictures will not be possible. we have had the idea of using the magic tool on final-cut which will allow us to put a back ground of our choice behind the clips.
Feeback from ex-art editor Future Music Magazine
The overall design lets me know what kind of band we’ve got here straight away. Moody. Avant garde (grown up speak for indie). Leftfield. It’s nice that you’ve used – what I guess – are the band members in the advert too.
Nice work on the photo manipulation, the black and white to colour looks professional. Though when you decide to roll-out the tour posters maybe talk to iStockphoto about buying the TV image... [cough]
Great name - Apollo Station. Maybe look at taking the NME rating down a notch, it’s great to have a qualifier from an independent source that people trust for finding new music, but it seems odd to dominate the album title.
The Girls on TV typography is fun, the way it works with the television set – you can see the begging's of a logo/icon for the merchandise. But I struggled to get the TV bit straight away. It might work better if the T and V were placed underneath the set, letters side-by-side. And White too.
Considering you are AV students and not graphic designers, it’s impressive stuff.
Thursday 26 November 2009
Magazine cover/Poster
Our ideas for the black and white background and the TV around Tom's face all went according to plan. We decided to put Tom's face in the TV as in the lyrics, one of the lines is "and is it real like those girls on TV", which gave us an image of surrealism and abstract, therefore we wanted to show this in the poster. We thought that, stereotypically, people would expect Bryony's head to be in the TV as she is the girl, but we went against that stereotype and mixed it up with Tom's head.
By putting Tom's head in the TV and making the background black and white, we had to work with the layers and make new ones then merge them etc. It was a long proccess but eventually it was done and we're very proud of how it's come out.
In the end, we decided that we should have TV written down the side of the TV as it would look better than either side. We made the font a purple/pink to contrast against the black and white background, and to link with Bryony's tights so there werent too many different colours on the magazine cover/poster.
The font we used for the band name and title of the song was used as it looks retro and rough, as the band is supposed to be percieved as rough around the edges and indie. We found the font on www.dafont.com and just changed the size to make it fit the structure of the poster, and as we needed the band title bigger than anything else on the page.
We then needed to think of a font for the tour dates, when the tour dates would be, where they would be, where to put them on the page and how they would fit around the other things going on on the magazine cover/poster. We decided on a font again from www.dafont.com that was memorable and slightly American. We liked this font as it has 2 different ways that come up, for example the "2010" on the poster looks transparent and the word "TOUR" looks is in white. We decided on white for most of our fonts as we thought it stood out from the black and white background but didnt take the attention away from the band members and "out now" banner. We decided on when the tour dates would be by writing in random dates for next year all in the spring/summer time, and we decided on the location by typing in in Google "arenas in UK" and chose from the long list.
At first we put the tour dates at the bottom of the page in a small font on the right hand side of Tom, but we then realised, and from feedback by our peers, that it wasn't standing out and wasn't really noticeable compared to the other happenings on the page so we decided to merge it into the frame more. We came up with the idea of slanting the tour dates by playing around with it and trying it in different ways, and chose the slanting idea as we thought it looked the best, running through the band members. We thought that it was a good place to put them as when the reader looks at the band members, the tour dates are immediately shown.
Like all reputable band posters, we chose to have a review from a well-known magazine, so we chose NME. We decided on the review by thinking of reviews we had seen before, and Tom thought of best newcomers, as Girls on TV would be Apollo Stations' new single! By adding on NME's review, it made the magazine cover/poster more realistic and like any other we had seen and researched.
We also used stars in the review to show the reader how good the song was and how it was rated by NME. As it was given 5 stars, we thought it might stand more of a chance of being bought, as we in the group have learnt this from past experience.
We also researched the font for the hmv logo and found it on Google after typing in "hmv logo font". It was easy to find, but we had to guess the colour for it. In the end we decided to have the same colour as the 5 stars and the word "TV". We added in the hmv logo as it's a very up to date, well known music and DVD store, which young people of today go in to buy their music and music technology. By associating our magazine cover/poster with hmv, we thought it'd draw more attention to it and open more to a wider range of readers.
By adding an "out now" banner, we thought it would show the readers that it was ready to buy now, as if it was what they had been waiting for. We put it in yellow and red so it was the brightest thing on the page, therefore telling the readers to grab the album as it may not be there long. We think the colours and font (which we used for the tour dates and reviw) work really well, as yellow and red clash, and the diagonal banner looks like a real one that is used in real magazine covers/posters of today. As we haven't used those colours anywhere else in the magazine cover/poster, it really captures the attention of the reader, and makes it unmissable that the album is out, which is ultimately what we want - sales of our single.
We are overall very pleased with our magazine cover/poster as it has taken a lot of time and effort, but it is certainly worth it. It really showed off our technology capabilities and by tweaking bits here and there we have really paid attention to the smallest of detail in all the right places.
By putting Tom's head in the TV and making the background black and white, we had to work with the layers and make new ones then merge them etc. It was a long proccess but eventually it was done and we're very proud of how it's come out.
In the end, we decided that we should have TV written down the side of the TV as it would look better than either side. We made the font a purple/pink to contrast against the black and white background, and to link with Bryony's tights so there werent too many different colours on the magazine cover/poster.
The font we used for the band name and title of the song was used as it looks retro and rough, as the band is supposed to be percieved as rough around the edges and indie. We found the font on www.dafont.com and just changed the size to make it fit the structure of the poster, and as we needed the band title bigger than anything else on the page.
We then needed to think of a font for the tour dates, when the tour dates would be, where they would be, where to put them on the page and how they would fit around the other things going on on the magazine cover/poster. We decided on a font again from www.dafont.com that was memorable and slightly American. We liked this font as it has 2 different ways that come up, for example the "2010" on the poster looks transparent and the word "TOUR" looks is in white. We decided on white for most of our fonts as we thought it stood out from the black and white background but didnt take the attention away from the band members and "out now" banner. We decided on when the tour dates would be by writing in random dates for next year all in the spring/summer time, and we decided on the location by typing in in Google "arenas in UK" and chose from the long list.
At first we put the tour dates at the bottom of the page in a small font on the right hand side of Tom, but we then realised, and from feedback by our peers, that it wasn't standing out and wasn't really noticeable compared to the other happenings on the page so we decided to merge it into the frame more. We came up with the idea of slanting the tour dates by playing around with it and trying it in different ways, and chose the slanting idea as we thought it looked the best, running through the band members. We thought that it was a good place to put them as when the reader looks at the band members, the tour dates are immediately shown.
Like all reputable band posters, we chose to have a review from a well-known magazine, so we chose NME. We decided on the review by thinking of reviews we had seen before, and Tom thought of best newcomers, as Girls on TV would be Apollo Stations' new single! By adding on NME's review, it made the magazine cover/poster more realistic and like any other we had seen and researched.
We also used stars in the review to show the reader how good the song was and how it was rated by NME. As it was given 5 stars, we thought it might stand more of a chance of being bought, as we in the group have learnt this from past experience.
We also researched the font for the hmv logo and found it on Google after typing in "hmv logo font". It was easy to find, but we had to guess the colour for it. In the end we decided to have the same colour as the 5 stars and the word "TV". We added in the hmv logo as it's a very up to date, well known music and DVD store, which young people of today go in to buy their music and music technology. By associating our magazine cover/poster with hmv, we thought it'd draw more attention to it and open more to a wider range of readers.
By adding an "out now" banner, we thought it would show the readers that it was ready to buy now, as if it was what they had been waiting for. We put it in yellow and red so it was the brightest thing on the page, therefore telling the readers to grab the album as it may not be there long. We think the colours and font (which we used for the tour dates and reviw) work really well, as yellow and red clash, and the diagonal banner looks like a real one that is used in real magazine covers/posters of today. As we haven't used those colours anywhere else in the magazine cover/poster, it really captures the attention of the reader, and makes it unmissable that the album is out, which is ultimately what we want - sales of our single.
We are overall very pleased with our magazine cover/poster as it has taken a lot of time and effort, but it is certainly worth it. It really showed off our technology capabilities and by tweaking bits here and there we have really paid attention to the smallest of detail in all the right places.
Friday 20 November 2009
Ideas for the Digipak
In our production meeting we first discussed the name of the band and which photo to put onto the magazine cover.
We first decided to work on the name of our band and by doing this we went on Wikipedia and kept clicking on the random botton. We thought of a theme for our band name but also had to keep it indie and edgy, and we thought of a name of a God or Goddess. We typed in Greek Gods on Wikipedia and found the Gods Apollo and Herion quite interesting as they are one God with two names. Apollo/Herion is the God of Sun and we thought it sounded powerful and memorable. As people dont generally know about the name Herion we decided to go with Apollo. Agreeing on one part of the name, we decided to lengthen it, therefore we started clicking the random button on Wikipedia. We found the word "Station" and we instantly thought of "Apollo Station". This then became our band name.
For our magazine cover, we decided to choose the photo of Tom and Bryony in the forest with the car with both of them looking in opposite directions looking slightly distracted/lost but comfortable.
As we put the photo into photoshop, a few ideas arose. We are hoping to put an old fashioned TV around Tom's face to make it look like his face is in the TV. We are then hoping to make the rest of the photo black and white and just have the TV and the image inside the TV (Tom's face) in colour. We think this will look very effective but it's just a case of spending a large amount of time on photoshop to perfect this image and make it look as we want it to. We have decided that we will need to spend multiple out of college hours to get the image perfect.
Above the TV box we will maybe have "Girls on" on it and then have the letters "T" and "V" either side of Tom's face. This is just an idea as we think it will look effective that we are writing "TV" and there will be an image TV where it is meant to be written.
We will then add on the band name at the top of the poster in a big font and have a barcode at the bottom right hand side of the image. We are thinking to put the barcode in colour to contrast from the black and white background although this has not yet been definately decided.
We first decided to work on the name of our band and by doing this we went on Wikipedia and kept clicking on the random botton. We thought of a theme for our band name but also had to keep it indie and edgy, and we thought of a name of a God or Goddess. We typed in Greek Gods on Wikipedia and found the Gods Apollo and Herion quite interesting as they are one God with two names. Apollo/Herion is the God of Sun and we thought it sounded powerful and memorable. As people dont generally know about the name Herion we decided to go with Apollo. Agreeing on one part of the name, we decided to lengthen it, therefore we started clicking the random button on Wikipedia. We found the word "Station" and we instantly thought of "Apollo Station". This then became our band name.
For our magazine cover, we decided to choose the photo of Tom and Bryony in the forest with the car with both of them looking in opposite directions looking slightly distracted/lost but comfortable.
As we put the photo into photoshop, a few ideas arose. We are hoping to put an old fashioned TV around Tom's face to make it look like his face is in the TV. We are then hoping to make the rest of the photo black and white and just have the TV and the image inside the TV (Tom's face) in colour. We think this will look very effective but it's just a case of spending a large amount of time on photoshop to perfect this image and make it look as we want it to. We have decided that we will need to spend multiple out of college hours to get the image perfect.
Above the TV box we will maybe have "Girls on" on it and then have the letters "T" and "V" either side of Tom's face. This is just an idea as we think it will look effective that we are writing "TV" and there will be an image TV where it is meant to be written.
We will then add on the band name at the top of the poster in a big font and have a barcode at the bottom right hand side of the image. We are thinking to put the barcode in colour to contrast from the black and white background although this has not yet been definately decided.
Thursday 19 November 2009
Digipak Planning
Now that we have finished our final cut we are beginning plans for making a Digipak to promote the single.
Here are some ideas for what we could include to increase the appeal of the single:
- Bonus tracks
- Lyrics
- Limited edition status
- Live performances
- 'Shout-outs'
- Video biography
- Interviews with band members
- Making of the video
Freebies:
- Stickers
- Posters
- Postcards
- Competitions
- Vouchers
- Priority tickets
- Signed stuff
In this meeting we are talking over ideas and themes to include in our digipak.
Here are some ideas for what we could include to increase the appeal of the single:
- Bonus tracks
- Lyrics
- Limited edition status
- Live performances
- 'Shout-outs'
- Video biography
- Interviews with band members
- Making of the video
Freebies:
- Stickers
- Posters
- Postcards
- Competitions
- Vouchers
- Priority tickets
- Signed stuff
In this meeting we are talking over ideas and themes to include in our digipak.
Tuesday 17 November 2009
Final Cut
Here is our finished product of our music video project. Girls On TV by Be Your Own PET!
Tuesday 10 November 2009
Extra footage
With our extra footage, we had to cut and edit it to make it fit properly into the footage we had already edited for our final cut. We had extra footage of Tom (the mime) playing the guitar in different areas of the forest and Bryony (lead singer) looking up at the camera whilst singing lyrics. There was also a panic today that we didnt have enough footage of Bryony's lips so we had to take the camera outside so the lighting was the same as the old shots, and had to film a close up of Bryony's lips.
With the footage of Tom playing the guitar in different, we had to cut the shots so we could place them in time with the beat whilst making it look effective. We made it look as if Tom had jumped from one place in the forest to another in a random order, whilst still playing the guitar to the music. We had to fill the gaps in the video we had so it didnt get boring for the viewer, therefore had to make the shots short and sharp. The shots were 0.5seconds quick in the final edit. It looks effective as it is more fun than just a long shot of Tom playing the guitar without any different angles of him.
We have yet to find a place for the shot of Bryony looking up at the camera, although we have added in the close up of her lips. We will use the shots to fill in the gaps (as above) where we have no footage and need new footage to keep it interesting.
We decided to do a split screen as the final shot (as we have done at the beginning of the sequence) as it would round the music video off very well. The shots we will use will be of both Bryony and Tom together to make it look as though they got together in the end.
With the footage of Tom playing the guitar in different, we had to cut the shots so we could place them in time with the beat whilst making it look effective. We made it look as if Tom had jumped from one place in the forest to another in a random order, whilst still playing the guitar to the music. We had to fill the gaps in the video we had so it didnt get boring for the viewer, therefore had to make the shots short and sharp. The shots were 0.5seconds quick in the final edit. It looks effective as it is more fun than just a long shot of Tom playing the guitar without any different angles of him.
We have yet to find a place for the shot of Bryony looking up at the camera, although we have added in the close up of her lips. We will use the shots to fill in the gaps (as above) where we have no footage and need new footage to keep it interesting.
We decided to do a split screen as the final shot (as we have done at the beginning of the sequence) as it would round the music video off very well. The shots we will use will be of both Bryony and Tom together to make it look as though they got together in the end.
Thursday 5 November 2009
Marking
-Ability to hold a shot steady, where appropriate
-Framing a shot
-Using a variety of shot distances
-Shooting material appropriate to task set
-Selecting mise-en-scene including colour, figure, lighting objects and setting
-Editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer
-Using varied shot transitions, captions and other effects
-Using sound with images and editing appropriatley for the task.
This is the marking criteria for our music video. To ensure that we fulfill these we will ask for feedback based on our rough cut. Also in the filming that we plan to do today we will try and meet all of the specifications to ensure maximum marks possible.
-Framing a shot
-Using a variety of shot distances
-Shooting material appropriate to task set
-Selecting mise-en-scene including colour, figure, lighting objects and setting
-Editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer
-Using varied shot transitions, captions and other effects
-Using sound with images and editing appropriatley for the task.
This is the marking criteria for our music video. To ensure that we fulfill these we will ask for feedback based on our rough cut. Also in the filming that we plan to do today we will try and meet all of the specifications to ensure maximum marks possible.
Rough Cut
This is the rough cut of our music video. There are still a few things we need to sort out before our final music video for example:
- even out the colouring on the split screens
- tighten up the beginning sequence, particularly the lips and borders
- fill in black patches with more footage
- bigger variety of shots during the closing scenes
We are going to start editing what we can immediately and start planning another filming session so we don't have to repeat our current footage and have a larger variety of good quality footage.
- even out the colouring on the split screens
- tighten up the beginning sequence, particularly the lips and borders
- fill in black patches with more footage
- bigger variety of shots during the closing scenes
We are going to start editing what we can immediately and start planning another filming session so we don't have to repeat our current footage and have a larger variety of good quality footage.
Further Filming
After reviewing our rough cut, we realised that we didn't have enough variety of footage to keep the quality of our video on the same level throughout the song.
We are very happy with the opening sequence but are going to be filming in our production meeting today for more camera angles of the performance.
Unfortunately we can't get to our original location therefore we are using the resources we have available.
We are very happy with the opening sequence but are going to be filming in our production meeting today for more camera angles of the performance.
Unfortunately we can't get to our original location therefore we are using the resources we have available.
Thursday 22 October 2009
Rough Cut Progress
So far our rough cut editing has been going well and we have been very pleased with our progress. We have now realised how our previous experiences with lip syncing practice have been particularly useful as we know how important this is in making our video look authentic and have a high quality final effect.
All group members have had a large input at this weeks production meetings and by combining all our ideas and skills with the footage we have managed to produce 1.30 minutes of high quality video.
When it comes to our final cut we have a few details we are considering changing, for example:
- the lighting on certain layers of the split screen needs to be adjusted
- we also need to adjust the shot to make the ground level, as at the moment its slightly tilted
- the borders between the shots on the introduction could be possibly removed.
- add the zoom effects onto the singers lips in the introduction.
- add effects to the narrative sequence. For example, reversing the footage, increasing speed etc
We are also thinking ahead for the future for the production of our DVD cover and poster and have been brainstorming ideas based on the behind the scenes photographs we took whilst filming. For example, the shots involving the two characters and the car.
Currently we feel that we have a sufficient amount of footage but this could possibly change.
All group members have had a large input at this weeks production meetings and by combining all our ideas and skills with the footage we have managed to produce 1.30 minutes of high quality video.
When it comes to our final cut we have a few details we are considering changing, for example:
- the lighting on certain layers of the split screen needs to be adjusted
- we also need to adjust the shot to make the ground level, as at the moment its slightly tilted
- the borders between the shots on the introduction could be possibly removed.
- add the zoom effects onto the singers lips in the introduction.
- add effects to the narrative sequence. For example, reversing the footage, increasing speed etc
We are also thinking ahead for the future for the production of our DVD cover and poster and have been brainstorming ideas based on the behind the scenes photographs we took whilst filming. For example, the shots involving the two characters and the car.
Currently we feel that we have a sufficient amount of footage but this could possibly change.
Thursday 15 October 2009
Album Ideas: Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, Thats What I'm Not
I chose to analyse The Arctic Monkeys album cover as they are an indie band, and that is the type of music we have made our video to. The band is an all boy band and the music is mostly fast paced with many guitar and bass solos. The boys are all messy and the style of clothing is edgy and indie, with skinny jeans, shirts and messy hairstyles. Although the Arctic Monkeys dont have a leading female singer, I thought their music was similar to Be Your Own PET - Girls on TV.
The album cover is interesting because the band arent on the picture and the photo of the man doesnt indicate anything about the album. It is totally random but it somehow has relevence as, to me, it shows the man being a rebel by smoking when everybody knows its bad for you. I think the Arctic Monkeys have chosen this image to show they dont care and just want to have a good time and do what they want, and the man in this photo demonstrates this perfectly.
The black and white effect is effective because its different and shows the simplicity of the photo. It makes all the attention go straight to the man in the photo and also works well with the text which is also in black and white. If there was colour there would be too much going on and would look slightly messy, so they have done the right thing. It also makes the album cover look old, as if it was taken with a camera that is years old, as when photos were first taken they were all in black and white. It adds a touch of vintage to the cover and shows that the boys have wanted to make it edgy.
The background is also simple; it looks like grey curtains, which also shows the minimalist effect. It works well with the man in front as it looks as if he is in contrast to it due to the brightness on him.
In conclusion, it looks like a low budget album cover as it is minimalist and looks as though there haven't been any effects used, therefore it is successful as it is memorable without having to do much to it or change it in any way.
Editing for Rough Cut
We have now begun our editing process. During the last few lessons we have been watching our footage (which is in total 26 minutes long) and working out which shots we need for the music video and where we need to put them. We have a good idea of where to put our shots as we have our storyboards and shot lists to guide us. As some of the shots were on a running camera, we had to cut a lot of the shots to make sure we gave some variety to our video, and doing this means we are cutting down our footage but still ensuring that we have plenty to play around with.
Tuesday 13 October 2009
Poster and DVD cover Pictures
While filming we also took some photo's that we could use for our poster and DVD cover which is also an element of our coursework. These are the photo's that we took and will look through and edit later:
Filming
During our filming we took a few pictures to show the progress. We had a bit of trouble because there was building work going on, this caused a few cars to drive across our shot, meaning re-shooting a few scenes.
It was also really really cold, so we had to do costume and make-up inside our cars.
Also after shooting when we looked through our footage we thought that the lighting was too bright, in final cut we will put a filter over the footage to make it look darker in the day.
Thursday 8 October 2009
Test Footage Of Intro
Here is test footage of what we plan to do for the introduction of our video. The still pictures will be video's of the actual performance when it comes to the final cut.
Panic! at the disco - I write sins not tragedies
I have chosen this video to analyse because the costumes are the sort of thing we are hoping to dress Tom in. There are mimes, each with different looks; some look scary, some eerie, some sad etc. We are hoping to pick a mime and make Tom look as close to it as possible.
The first shot of the band member is a close up from above, looking down on him from under the hat. We are thinking of introducing a shot into the shot list of Tom doing a similar thing, with the similar kind of shot. The whole theme of the music video is eerie and we are hoping to achieve this with Tom as closely as we can. When I thought of a video that would show different types of costumes and clowns to give us inspiration I thought of this video. There is a wide range of styles and make up techniques we could use so we have a variety to choose from for Tom.
In the video, the mimes are all happy in the beginning. Then as things start to go on and chaos arises their make up is changed and they are made to look sad. We are looking to do this with Tom to show the different types of emotions through the music video; as he will have a lot of paint on his face, there will be no other way to show his emotions then to keep wiping off then reapplying face make up with a different emotion on it. This will be quite difficult and time consuming but it will look effective, just like it does in this video.
The close up shots in Panic! at the disco's video make it easier to see how to achieve the look and use the make up effectively, and it will be easier to do it stage by stage, slowing down the youtube video so we can see exactly how the make up was used in the music video so we can use it for Tom.
Tuesday 6 October 2009
Be your own PET Myspace
Be Your Own PET
While we were emailing the band we looked through the bands Myspace photo's to see what they look like and there dress sense and how they present the band. The general idea for costume was what we had thought of. This will help us to style our selves to look more appropriate to their genre. The pictures will also help when we are designing the poster and DVD cover, by using their location ideas, props, costumes and camera angles.
The first picture above looked similar in how gritty and rural our filming location will be.
While we were emailing the band we looked through the bands Myspace photo's to see what they look like and there dress sense and how they present the band. The general idea for costume was what we had thought of. This will help us to style our selves to look more appropriate to their genre. The pictures will also help when we are designing the poster and DVD cover, by using their location ideas, props, costumes and camera angles.
The first picture above looked similar in how gritty and rural our filming location will be.
Message to Be Your Own Pet
We have just written to Be Your Own Pet to ask permission to use the song for the video.
Above is a copy of the message.
Similar Music Video
To give us ideas and inspire us with our music video, we looked at a range of video's that match our song genre which is indie rock with a female lead. We looked alot at the Gossip to see how they portrayed the female lead and showed the performance of the rest of the band. This lead us to looking at other video's that represented the tempo and style of our song. (upbeat, fast tempo, and busy beats) The song reminded me of OK GO's 'Here it goes again' because of the fast tempo. We wanted to something similar with either lots of fast shots or lots of things happening in the shots to give the effect of confusion and rushing.
We liked this video because of how original yet clever the concept was.
With Girls on TV I think that our lead woman singer unlike the OK GO video where the whole band is featured all the time, will be shown on her own for some of the time. She will be the centre of attention on camera some of the time, this will be shown by her position on camera and her bright costume and make up.
We liked this video because of how original yet clever the concept was.
With Girls on TV I think that our lead woman singer unlike the OK GO video where the whole band is featured all the time, will be shown on her own for some of the time. She will be the centre of attention on camera some of the time, this will be shown by her position on camera and her bright costume and make up.
Props and Costumes
Instruments have proved quite difficult to acquire for our filming. As we need bass, a guitar, an amp and drums we have not been lucky in the sense that finding these instruments has been proven a difficult task.
We have managed to find friends who have these instruments; Tom in our group has a black and white guitar (which would look extremely effective as he is acting as a mime) and an amp, Claire in our group will be able to get hold of bass from her brother and Bryony in our group will be able to get drums from a relative. We will have to get all of these instruments to the place where we will be filming which will be a slight problem, but as 2 of us drive we will have to make 2 trips to fit everything in the car, depending on how big the instruments are. When we get to the scene of filming we will have to set all the instruments up then act as if we are using them in our footage.
We will have to experiment with costumes as the main girl needs to be in colour. We are hoping Bryony will wear something like coloured/patterned leggings, a long top, converse, colourful cardigan and a lot of jewelry. We need her to be in complete contrast with the black and white mime (Tom) and by doing this it will make her stand out as the lead singer and sex symbol.
I will have to bring in colourful make up on the day, as Bryony will have big eye make up and stand out by looking very indie. We are hoping to mismatch her make up with her outfit so she looks edgy, unique and memorable.
We have managed to find friends who have these instruments; Tom in our group has a black and white guitar (which would look extremely effective as he is acting as a mime) and an amp, Claire in our group will be able to get hold of bass from her brother and Bryony in our group will be able to get drums from a relative. We will have to get all of these instruments to the place where we will be filming which will be a slight problem, but as 2 of us drive we will have to make 2 trips to fit everything in the car, depending on how big the instruments are. When we get to the scene of filming we will have to set all the instruments up then act as if we are using them in our footage.
We will have to experiment with costumes as the main girl needs to be in colour. We are hoping Bryony will wear something like coloured/patterned leggings, a long top, converse, colourful cardigan and a lot of jewelry. We need her to be in complete contrast with the black and white mime (Tom) and by doing this it will make her stand out as the lead singer and sex symbol.
I will have to bring in colourful make up on the day, as Bryony will have big eye make up and stand out by looking very indie. We are hoping to mismatch her make up with her outfit so she looks edgy, unique and memorable.
Preparation
Before we go ahead with the filming there is alot of preparation that we are going to have to do. For my part in the music video, being the lead singer i will have to learn the lyrics of the song in order to film me and lip sink well.
I have put the song on my ipod and phone so that it is accessible to listen to at most times.
The lyrics i have to learn are these:
My other half wants to run away with me
It's too hot and too fast
If you tell him once just let it be
We don't want love, no love
And if it's real like the ghost on the sea
Shut up and smile cos you just cut into me
And if it's real like the ghost on the sea
Shut up and smile cos you just cut into me
And is it real, and is it real
And is it real like the ghost on the sea?
If our emotions get to heavy to carry
All too hot and too fast
They won't know and we won't be sorry
We don't want love, no love
And is it real like the girls on TV?
Shut up and smile cos you just cut into me
And is it real like those girls on TV?
Shut up and smile cos you just cut into me
And is it real, and is it real
Is it real like those girls on TV?
Tick tick, do that trick trick
Tick tick, now you're sick
Hide in the closet, we kiss
Neither of us feeling this
And is it real like the girls on TV?
Shut up and smile cos you just cut into me
And is it real like those girls on TV?
Shut up and smile cos you just cut into me
And this ain't real, and this ain't real
This ain't real like those girls on TV
As well as learning the lyrics i have got to make a costume and find some make up that will fit with the genre of our song. This is indie, edgy and colourful to contrast will the plain colours of the mime costume. Also we must remember to bring duck tape to mark the places that me and tom (the mime) will stand so that editing the different shots of tom will be easier and more fluent.
I have put the song on my ipod and phone so that it is accessible to listen to at most times.
The lyrics i have to learn are these:
My other half wants to run away with me
It's too hot and too fast
If you tell him once just let it be
We don't want love, no love
And if it's real like the ghost on the sea
Shut up and smile cos you just cut into me
And if it's real like the ghost on the sea
Shut up and smile cos you just cut into me
And is it real, and is it real
And is it real like the ghost on the sea?
If our emotions get to heavy to carry
All too hot and too fast
They won't know and we won't be sorry
We don't want love, no love
And is it real like the girls on TV?
Shut up and smile cos you just cut into me
And is it real like those girls on TV?
Shut up and smile cos you just cut into me
And is it real, and is it real
Is it real like those girls on TV?
Tick tick, do that trick trick
Tick tick, now you're sick
Hide in the closet, we kiss
Neither of us feeling this
And is it real like the girls on TV?
Shut up and smile cos you just cut into me
And is it real like those girls on TV?
Shut up and smile cos you just cut into me
And this ain't real, and this ain't real
This ain't real like those girls on TV
As well as learning the lyrics i have got to make a costume and find some make up that will fit with the genre of our song. This is indie, edgy and colourful to contrast will the plain colours of the mime costume. Also we must remember to bring duck tape to mark the places that me and tom (the mime) will stand so that editing the different shots of tom will be easier and more fluent.
Test Footage
This is test footage that Tom and Claire put together in a production meeting on Friday. There is a slight mismatch of the brick wall which we used as a back drop. To avoid this next time we are going to leave the camera running throughout everything and cut out what is not needed, from doing this we do not have to touch the camera at all and hopefully will achieve a neater effect.
Sunday 4 October 2009
Locations.
For the location of our music video shoot, the group decided we wanted to have somewhere quiet and isolated with a feeling of being lost. With this idea in mind I suggested an abandoned house and warehouse which I believed would provide the ideal setting.
In order to give the other group members a good sense of what the location would entail I took several photos for them and received their approval to use this as our location.
Copies of the photos can be seen below.
The Gossip - Heavy Cross
The Gossip front woman Beth Ditto has become an icon since the band's first hit "Standing in the Way of Control" which featured as part of the soundtrack to the popular teen drama Skins.
The new album features the above track, Heavy Cross and the video shows their alternative status in the music industry. The video features an abstract styled performance which focuses largely on Beth Ditto, the band members are also featured within the video but mostly in the background.
When compared to our production group's aspirations I found this video particularly good to look at as it provides another example for how female fronted bands in the industry are protrayed.
The minimalism with the use of shadows to create an effect of eerieness and abstract art rather than a narrative makes it interesting to watch and with the focus on Beth Ditto the power is given to her.
With Girls on TV I believe that our front woman also needs to be the centre of attention on camera, because of this as a group we are looking into appropriate clothing and make up.
A blog will follow up on our research shortly.
Friday 2 October 2009
Singer costume ideas
Bryony; Edgy indie look
- shirt
- skinny jeans
- converse/plimsoles
- back brushed hair
- lots of jewelry, big earrings, earrings in all piercings
- big eye make up
Bryony; More girly indie look
- leggings (coloured, patterned)
- long top - tunic top - black & white, picture on it/patterned
- converse/boots
- chunky cardigan - coloured
- lots of jewelry
- big eye make up and face make up - blusher etc
Tom; Mime 1
- black top
- white jeans
- braces
- black shoes
- top hat
- stick
- black and white face paints - with a tear etc
Tom; Mime 2
- stripey black and white top
- white/black jeans
- beret hat
- plimsoles - black or white
- braces
- stick
- black and white face paints - with a tear etc
- shirt
- skinny jeans
- converse/plimsoles
- back brushed hair
- lots of jewelry, big earrings, earrings in all piercings
- big eye make up
Bryony; More girly indie look
- leggings (coloured, patterned)
- long top - tunic top - black & white, picture on it/patterned
- converse/boots
- chunky cardigan - coloured
- lots of jewelry
- big eye make up and face make up - blusher etc
Tom; Mime 1
- black top
- white jeans
- braces
- black shoes
- top hat
- stick
- black and white face paints - with a tear etc
Tom; Mime 2
- stripey black and white top
- white/black jeans
- beret hat
- plimsoles - black or white
- braces
- stick
- black and white face paints - with a tear etc
Costume ideas - Mime
Using face paints, we are hoping to be able to recreate a similar effect as the one in the above picture. The tear drop like eye make up we thought would look particularly effective as we want the mime to be particularly eerie to give the video a surreal edge and create a good divide and be significantly different from the ideal love stories you see on TV.The bottom picture shows a typical mime's costume which we are going to be recreating simply with the striped t-shirt and skinny jeans
Paul McCartney - Coming Up
We were recommended to watch this video because the techniques used in it our similar to the ones we are aspiring to achieve.
The video, released in 1980, was a very early example of technology trickery and Paul McCartney is seen to be playing 10 different band members and his wife Linda plays a further two. The different members were depicting various different impersonations of artists such as: The guitarist, Hank Marvin from the Shadows and Ritchie Blackmore Rainbow/Deep Purple.
We have found watching this video very helpful to watch and its given us high aspirations for the final results of our video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDBkySeyiDo
The video, released in 1980, was a very early example of technology trickery and Paul McCartney is seen to be playing 10 different band members and his wife Linda plays a further two. The different members were depicting various different impersonations of artists such as: The guitarist, Hank Marvin from the Shadows and Ritchie Blackmore Rainbow/Deep Purple.
We have found watching this video very helpful to watch and its given us high aspirations for the final results of our video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDBkySeyiDo
Thursday 1 October 2009
Final Concept and Shot List
At our last production meeting we pitched our music video concept and got approval from the group.
The concept we have decided on include the split screen introduction that we discussed in our last blog. We will be focusing on the performance and having cutaway shots to create a narrative which will link to the lyrics of the song. The performance will be a member of our group being filmed playing all instruments and dressed as a mime edited together using a cut screen to make it look as if he is playing all the instruments single handedly at the same time. We will also have a female lead singer with an indie style and wearing colourful clothes in contrast to the black and white outfit of the mime.
Shot List:
Shot 1: Begins with a black screen
Shot 2: One quarter of the split screen will introduce the guitar
Shot 3: Repeated with the bass
Shot 4: Repeated with the drums
Shot 5: And finally the singer's lips
Shot 6: The shot zooms into the singer's mouth and then back out to the girl in our first location, walking towards hand held camera, singing.
Shot 7: Long shot of band in line (split screen to show Tom as all band members)
Shot 8: Girl enters shot from the right, Tom on the right sees her, stops playing and walks towards her. Other mimes look over and watch.
Shot 9: Zoom onto to singer and band member pulls her towards band. Girl starts singing, mimes look at her oddly.
Shot 10: Girl runs away. Cuts to shots of girl running away, each getting further away.
Shot 11: Cut away narration at second location. Mime chasing girl.
Shot 12: Stiller, calmer shot of mime and girl happily together - "like the girls on tv"
Shot 13: Mime chasing girl.
Shot 14: Cut back to singer performance
Following shots will be alternating between:
- the mime chasing the girl
- the mimes performance
- the singer.
The final shot: Camera zooming into the singer's mouth and fading to black.
The concept we have decided on include the split screen introduction that we discussed in our last blog. We will be focusing on the performance and having cutaway shots to create a narrative which will link to the lyrics of the song. The performance will be a member of our group being filmed playing all instruments and dressed as a mime edited together using a cut screen to make it look as if he is playing all the instruments single handedly at the same time. We will also have a female lead singer with an indie style and wearing colourful clothes in contrast to the black and white outfit of the mime.
Shot List:
Shot 1: Begins with a black screen
Shot 2: One quarter of the split screen will introduce the guitar
Shot 3: Repeated with the bass
Shot 4: Repeated with the drums
Shot 5: And finally the singer's lips
Shot 6: The shot zooms into the singer's mouth and then back out to the girl in our first location, walking towards hand held camera, singing.
Shot 7: Long shot of band in line (split screen to show Tom as all band members)
Shot 8: Girl enters shot from the right, Tom on the right sees her, stops playing and walks towards her. Other mimes look over and watch.
Shot 9: Zoom onto to singer and band member pulls her towards band. Girl starts singing, mimes look at her oddly.
Shot 10: Girl runs away. Cuts to shots of girl running away, each getting further away.
Shot 11: Cut away narration at second location. Mime chasing girl.
Shot 12: Stiller, calmer shot of mime and girl happily together - "like the girls on tv"
Shot 13: Mime chasing girl.
Shot 14: Cut back to singer performance
Following shots will be alternating between:
- the mime chasing the girl
- the mimes performance
- the singer.
The final shot: Camera zooming into the singer's mouth and fading to black.
Saturday 26 September 2009
Idea's for the music video
Our final decision was to do Girls on TV. This is because we all had many ideas as we listened to the song. My idea was that we had a split screen of 4. The first image to appear in one of the screens would be the bass as it comes on in the music. The next image would be the drums as it comes on in the music. The next would be the guitar as it comes on the in the music, and the final image on one of the four screens would be the singers lips as she sings the first words. It would be a tricky thing to do and will take a lot of extra time on the college computers but my group and I seem keen on the idea. As the song gets into the verse/chorus/bridge, the camera will zoom into one of the four split screens and the action will go on in that scene, for example there will be some weird moments and shots that create a sense of eerieness - this would include a mime, or a band set up down a street, or the singer running away from something chasing her. When the action in that scene has finished, the camera will then zoom out again into the split shot. When on the split shot, the instruments and girls lips will still be going, and the chorus will be playing everytime the camera zooms out onto the split shot. When there is another verse, the camera will zoom into a different split shot, and another set of action will go on, whether its the band playing live or some other action packed scene. It will zoom out again, onto the split shot when the chorus is playing. When the last chorus says "Girls on TV", the camera will zoom into a shot from the split screen and it will show the singer singing on a TV. We hope to achieve this by using a security camera whilst the singer is singing into it, and recording the TV. We will then zoom out, and as the music fades to signal the end of the song, the images on the split screen dissapear one by one, until we are left with a blank screen.
This is just an idea, but after conferring with the group it seems as though we are set on it.
This is just an idea, but after conferring with the group it seems as though we are set on it.
Thursday 24 September 2009
Foals - "Cassius"
To compare conventions with the ideas we have for our music video, I picked a youtube video with the same sort of indie feel to it. The video I have chosen is Foals "Cassius". The video is fast paced, with random yet quirky moments in it. These include the meat hanging from the ceiling on a string, the white aeroplane that one of the band members are playing with and one of the boys using a bunch of flowers as drumsticks.
The boys are all wearing skinny trousers with the same sort of look, whether its the big fringes or the shirts the main 3 boys are wearing.
The video itself is rather strange but is also edgy and unique. The white background means there is all focus on the band and there are no distractions. The random objects in the video, for example the flowers and the hanging meat, all show that the band wanted to be different with their video and wanted it to stand out. There isnt a connection between the narrative and the video, and this is blatent as the video is quite plain.
The props they used are minimal too. There are a few instruments on set but they are in the background and arent being played. This shows the band dont want too much credit of the fact that they play instruments. The only props used were the flowers, the meat, the aeroplans, the instruments (for show) and the string that the boys are fixing the aeroplanes on. None of these props have any relevance to eachother or the narrative/lyrics.
No effects have been in the video; the boys have kept it very much minimalist. This works well as it shows the rawness of the band and what they wanted their video to look like.
The band is an all male band but this does not stereotypically mean that there will be a dance routine, a love interest or sex symbol. The band have made sure they are shown to be different from the usual boy bands of today by not using any of the above boy band conventions. They have shown that although they are a boy band, the music means more than the image.
There are a few close ups but the boys aren't posing for the camera, they are just being casual. This shows they are relaxed about doing the video and are used to it, showing they are cool, and in this day and age, to teenagers, this is a massive factor of a band.
The album cover has been attached to this blog. The complicated design shows the complexity of the track, and the fact it has been drawn makes it look as if the band aren't into making it look all technical but have gone for a more personal approach. The colours are simple, not so much that it fades into the background unnoticed, but it makes the cover seem calming.