This is my final blog, and this is a post saying that it is done.
Thank you.
Goodbye.
Friday, 20 April 2012
Wednesday, 18 April 2012
Evaluation: Question 4
Creating this video to the standard that we did would have been extremely difficult (if not impossible) had we not had the technology we were lucky enough to have.
We were blessed enough to have a HD camera that was owned by a group member, Jake. This gave our footage a crisp and sharp look, and I feel that really helps the video stand out. We were also lucky enough to have Macintosh computers available to edit our footage on, and this helped very much as the software that is used my Mac computers is very advanced and professional. I've been able to use expensive and nice to use products such as photoshop and final cut to work on this video, which has been a great use and has really helped to create a video and create digipaks that we wanted to create, to the highest standard possible.
Social networking sites like Facebook have also assisted in my research, by allowing me to quickly and easily get in touch with target audiences and focus groups, as well as share the work I have been doing and receive feedback. Programmes such as prezi have also allowed us to give concise and easy to follow presentations to the class.
YouTube has been used a great deal to share our final video, rough cuts and focus groups with one another. Things as simple as mobile phones have also made it much easier to share information, schedules and messages between one another, making the process of getting together and working much easier.
We were blessed enough to have a HD camera that was owned by a group member, Jake. This gave our footage a crisp and sharp look, and I feel that really helps the video stand out. We were also lucky enough to have Macintosh computers available to edit our footage on, and this helped very much as the software that is used my Mac computers is very advanced and professional. I've been able to use expensive and nice to use products such as photoshop and final cut to work on this video, which has been a great use and has really helped to create a video and create digipaks that we wanted to create, to the highest standard possible.
Social networking sites like Facebook have also assisted in my research, by allowing me to quickly and easily get in touch with target audiences and focus groups, as well as share the work I have been doing and receive feedback. Programmes such as prezi have also allowed us to give concise and easy to follow presentations to the class.
YouTube has been used a great deal to share our final video, rough cuts and focus groups with one another. Things as simple as mobile phones have also made it much easier to share information, schedules and messages between one another, making the process of getting together and working much easier.
Evaluation: Question 3
Through out the time we spent making our video, we found that audience feedback was crucial to the video going well, and also the development of idea. If we were unsure in what direction to go with an idea in the video, we could assemble a small focus group and ask what their opinion was. This came in useful on numerous occasions, including and possibly most importantly when the group was debating whether or not to proceed in the direction of making a narrative video.
After showing our concerns to a focus group and asking their opinion, they decided it to be best that we proceeded in a performance only direction also. They felt, as we did, that the narrative didn't make enough sense to be relevant to the video - so this confirmed our feelings and the narrative was then cut from the video.
Facebook was a valuable tool in receiving audience feedback about my video. This made it extremely easy for me to share the video onto a page on facebook, and essentially have an online focus group without anyone having to leave their house. Also, when online people are more likely to tell the truth about their opinions and not hedge around subjects (because of the protection of not being face to face with those you are criticizing) - so this lead to honest and good feedback about our video. This feedback was positive, which is lucky and a good feeling when you have worked hard to create a video and a product to go with it.
It also is a useful way to make decisions you don't want to make yourself, such as when I wanted to decide on a house font and a logo style font for The Novocaines. The audience feedback showed me the font that was most popular, and it was by a landslide, and because of this it made it onto my final product as a main feature and recognizable point to the work.
After showing our concerns to a focus group and asking their opinion, they decided it to be best that we proceeded in a performance only direction also. They felt, as we did, that the narrative didn't make enough sense to be relevant to the video - so this confirmed our feelings and the narrative was then cut from the video.
Facebook was a valuable tool in receiving audience feedback about my video. This made it extremely easy for me to share the video onto a page on facebook, and essentially have an online focus group without anyone having to leave their house. Also, when online people are more likely to tell the truth about their opinions and not hedge around subjects (because of the protection of not being face to face with those you are criticizing) - so this lead to honest and good feedback about our video. This feedback was positive, which is lucky and a good feeling when you have worked hard to create a video and a product to go with it.
It also is a useful way to make decisions you don't want to make yourself, such as when I wanted to decide on a house font and a logo style font for The Novocaines. The audience feedback showed me the font that was most popular, and it was by a landslide, and because of this it made it onto my final product as a main feature and recognizable point to the work.
Evaluation: Question 2
In what ways is the branding coherent? Why does it all look like it's for the same band?
One of the big themes across the music video, digipak and the magazine advert is that all 3 use primarily 3 main colors - black, red and white. I decided to use this color scheme through out all pieces as I believe it to be a powerful color scheme, and have tremendous impact on the audience.
Jack White (of The White Stripes) said this about the color scheme, which was also used in his band: "the White Stripes' colors were always red, white and black. It came from peppermint candy. I also think they are the most powerful color combination of all time, from a Coca-Cola can to a Nazi banner. Those colors strike chords with people. In Japan, they are honorable colors. When you see a bride in a white gown, you immediately see innocence in that. Red is anger and passion. It is also sexual. And black is the absence of all that."
These colors appear through out each bit of advertising to keep the product coherent and to help the audience and potential customers associate these colors with the band, and making the band stand out more in a record store or on TV.
The images used on the digipak are also used in the advertisement and are taken directly from the music video - this also keeps the product coherent and allows the products to be associated together by audiences. If you see one, the idea is that you recognize it again when seeing another linked advertisement. Keeping the clothes, setting and colors the same in the images was very important to me, and the only change in the color scheme comes in the disk quarter of the digipak - this is to make the disk stand out and seem highlighted and important.
The audience were able to associate the products together with ease as a result of the house style I have used. I feel more entropic elements such as the unusual clothing that the band has also help the band to stick out and be memorable.
One thing that does differ slightly from the digipak and advertisement is the font type I have used. For example, helevicta was used mainly but in places different fonts have been use that are not as associated with part of the actual product - such as reviews on the advert and thank yous on the digipak.
One of the big themes across the music video, digipak and the magazine advert is that all 3 use primarily 3 main colors - black, red and white. I decided to use this color scheme through out all pieces as I believe it to be a powerful color scheme, and have tremendous impact on the audience.
Jack White (of The White Stripes) said this about the color scheme, which was also used in his band: "the White Stripes' colors were always red, white and black. It came from peppermint candy. I also think they are the most powerful color combination of all time, from a Coca-Cola can to a Nazi banner. Those colors strike chords with people. In Japan, they are honorable colors. When you see a bride in a white gown, you immediately see innocence in that. Red is anger and passion. It is also sexual. And black is the absence of all that."
These colors appear through out each bit of advertising to keep the product coherent and to help the audience and potential customers associate these colors with the band, and making the band stand out more in a record store or on TV.
The images used on the digipak are also used in the advertisement and are taken directly from the music video - this also keeps the product coherent and allows the products to be associated together by audiences. If you see one, the idea is that you recognize it again when seeing another linked advertisement. Keeping the clothes, setting and colors the same in the images was very important to me, and the only change in the color scheme comes in the disk quarter of the digipak - this is to make the disk stand out and seem highlighted and important.
The audience were able to associate the products together with ease as a result of the house style I have used. I feel more entropic elements such as the unusual clothing that the band has also help the band to stick out and be memorable.
One thing that does differ slightly from the digipak and advertisement is the font type I have used. For example, helevicta was used mainly but in places different fonts have been use that are not as associated with part of the actual product - such as reviews on the advert and thank yous on the digipak.
Evaluation: question 1
When we began the process of creating our media product and music video, we first had the task of finding a band and a song that we felt would fit well with the styles of the group, and mix well with types of filming, editing, and general music taste that the group were comfortable with and enjoyed. This first step began with searching through YouTube individually and reporting any findings back to other members of the group. A few suitable songs and bands were found, but these artists were almost always under the copy right protection of a record label, and thus unsuitable for our independent video. After some searching around we came across a band called "The Novocaines", who had supported bands our group enjoyed (such as "The Crooked Vultures") and had a style of music that we felt would fit perfectly with the ideas we already had in our head. We first settled on using the song "Cup of Coffee", and emailed the band seeking permission. After they had granted us permission to use the song and had sent us a free mp3, we had second thoughts and re-evaluated our choices - eventually settling on "Ragdoll Blues", but having to buy the song from iTunes as we could not recieve another free copy. This song was seen as more suitable as it was longer, and had more varying tempos and a sound we felt generally suited the video more than "Cup of Coffee".
I then researched some music videos of my own for inspiration and ideas to put towards the video, as well as to learn how professionals handled creating high quality music videos. I studied the very entropic music video to "Karma Police" by Radiohead. This kind of video appealed to me very much as I found it interesting how the entropic concept of the video stuck in your mind, as it was dark and sinister, yet also unlike other videos from Radiohead (or in fact other similar bands). This helped us create our first idea for a narrative video, in which we would try and entropic approach to catch the audience's attention. I also looked up a more redundant style of video, by analyzing "All My Life" by Foo Fighters - a band much closer to the musical styling of The Novocaines. This also gave us ideas to do a performance based more redundant video, and possibly entwine the 2 styles, as the Foo Fighters video used this style to great effect in their video.
As a group we found it relatively easy to agree on good, creative ideas and each be happy with them. There were slight disagreements in style of costume, and a few of the shots we had in mind to use, as well as if we should go full performance or full narrative, or fuse the two together. The group luckily worked well together creatively, which took a lot of the stress off creating the video - less worrying about keeping everyone pleased as each mind was working on a similar level.
After presenting our ideas to a focus group and receiving feedback that they thought the video would work as a mix of narrative and performance, we began filming our music video. This presented challenges to us as the ideas we had presented and decided upon for the entropic narrative weren't jelling well with the style of the song, and when we came to editing we noticed performance elements taking priority over narrative as the very first cut developed. We consulted a focus group and found that they agreed that the video would work better as performance from what they had seen. This shows a definite convention in the style of music we used, having heavy performance based music videos with little to no humor or narrative seemed to work well for both the rock band we had chosen, and rock band's we had studied, such as Foo Fighters.
Our filming process of the performance was conventional to how a rock performance video would be filmed, with individual mining parts and group performance shots taking place one after the other, being edited together in final stages to look like one big performance. Lighting and setting may not have been as professional or expensive as other bigger and more funded music videos, but this worked to an advantage and helped give the video a rough, vintage and deliberately budget quality to the music video, and a grunge feel that goes well with the music - similar to that of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana, also filmed in a school/college hall.
We found it difficult to be fully original in our music video, due to all the preset conventions already formulated by the music industry, especially in the form of rock videos that are performance based. We tried to stick out from the crowd by having costumes that are entropic, such as Hawaiian shirts and general bad taste in clothing. I feel the that our video will stick out to fans of the genre as taking a very redundant style of video, and adding quirky elements of entropy to it - for example, odd clothing, strange styles of playing guitar and over the top performing. The video has an equal balance of seriousness and fun, which should captivate viewers imaginations and assist in the enjoyment of the song. Walter John Williams believed that labeling a band with a style or genre is only a starting point and leads to targeting audiences - but you can't make the audience in the end like the product. I feel that after holding our focus groups appropriately and tweaking the video to match our ideas and feedback, that our video now appeals to a greater audience than it would have had we stuck to doing a narrative video, and I believe this is a main contributing factor as to why I believe it is a successful video.
I then researched some music videos of my own for inspiration and ideas to put towards the video, as well as to learn how professionals handled creating high quality music videos. I studied the very entropic music video to "Karma Police" by Radiohead. This kind of video appealed to me very much as I found it interesting how the entropic concept of the video stuck in your mind, as it was dark and sinister, yet also unlike other videos from Radiohead (or in fact other similar bands). This helped us create our first idea for a narrative video, in which we would try and entropic approach to catch the audience's attention. I also looked up a more redundant style of video, by analyzing "All My Life" by Foo Fighters - a band much closer to the musical styling of The Novocaines. This also gave us ideas to do a performance based more redundant video, and possibly entwine the 2 styles, as the Foo Fighters video used this style to great effect in their video.
As a group we found it relatively easy to agree on good, creative ideas and each be happy with them. There were slight disagreements in style of costume, and a few of the shots we had in mind to use, as well as if we should go full performance or full narrative, or fuse the two together. The group luckily worked well together creatively, which took a lot of the stress off creating the video - less worrying about keeping everyone pleased as each mind was working on a similar level.
After presenting our ideas to a focus group and receiving feedback that they thought the video would work as a mix of narrative and performance, we began filming our music video. This presented challenges to us as the ideas we had presented and decided upon for the entropic narrative weren't jelling well with the style of the song, and when we came to editing we noticed performance elements taking priority over narrative as the very first cut developed. We consulted a focus group and found that they agreed that the video would work better as performance from what they had seen. This shows a definite convention in the style of music we used, having heavy performance based music videos with little to no humor or narrative seemed to work well for both the rock band we had chosen, and rock band's we had studied, such as Foo Fighters.
Our filming process of the performance was conventional to how a rock performance video would be filmed, with individual mining parts and group performance shots taking place one after the other, being edited together in final stages to look like one big performance. Lighting and setting may not have been as professional or expensive as other bigger and more funded music videos, but this worked to an advantage and helped give the video a rough, vintage and deliberately budget quality to the music video, and a grunge feel that goes well with the music - similar to that of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana, also filmed in a school/college hall.
We found it difficult to be fully original in our music video, due to all the preset conventions already formulated by the music industry, especially in the form of rock videos that are performance based. We tried to stick out from the crowd by having costumes that are entropic, such as Hawaiian shirts and general bad taste in clothing. I feel the that our video will stick out to fans of the genre as taking a very redundant style of video, and adding quirky elements of entropy to it - for example, odd clothing, strange styles of playing guitar and over the top performing. The video has an equal balance of seriousness and fun, which should captivate viewers imaginations and assist in the enjoyment of the song. Walter John Williams believed that labeling a band with a style or genre is only a starting point and leads to targeting audiences - but you can't make the audience in the end like the product. I feel that after holding our focus groups appropriately and tweaking the video to match our ideas and feedback, that our video now appeals to a greater audience than it would have had we stuck to doing a narrative video, and I believe this is a main contributing factor as to why I believe it is a successful video.
Monday, 16 April 2012
I have followed the leads of others and i have created a facebook page to receive feedback. Some of the images I will be uploading will be from there, such as one from my previous post.
Digipak
I have created this first draft of my digipak, and have asked for some audience feedback.
I first of all asked for which font to use, and the one that features as the album name and band name, as well as "track list" is the one that was selected - although 1 person has set it may be too hard to read (however, after asking them to say what it read, they read it correctly.
also it was suggested I capitalize the track listing, and find a different image for the top right (disk slot), as it is hard to see.
I will take these into account on my 2nd draft!
Sunday, 15 April 2012
Template
Today I shall be working on my digipak. I am new to using photoshop and I expect the results to be interesting - I will ask for feedback from fellow classmates.
This is the template I am using to create my gigipak, and the images will be mostly taken from our music video.
Friday, 13 April 2012
Risk Assessment
Potential Danger
|
Potential Outcomes
|
Actions to avoid potential outcomes
|
Risk Severity / Probability
(10 – most severe/most probable)
|
Particular Location
|
Tripping hazard
|
Camera man trips while whilst filming and walking
|
Work out route of filming and walking backwards
|
3 / 3
|
Street adjacent to Ludlow Spar
|
Vehicles
|
Hit by a car
|
Make sure we don’t wander into the road
|
10 / 3
|
Whitcliffe
|
Tripping hazard
|
Trip on tripod
|
Clearly mark the legs of the tripod
|
3 / 3
| |
Shooting
Furniture hazard, appliance hazards
|
Sliding across tables may cause falls, appliances can be tripping hazards
|
Define route of travel through room and clearly note hazards on it
|
3 / 3
|
LRC, Ludlow College
|
Shooting
Miscellaneous accident
|
3 / 3
|
Alley off Castle Square
| ||
Shooting
Tripping off the stage
|
Tripping off the stage, potential minor injury
|
Be aware of the edges of the stage, and undulations in it.
|
5/5
|
College drama studio
|
Thursday, 29 March 2012
Colors
These are the colors I am considering using at the main colors on my album artwork.
I shall see which is popular amongst a target audience, then evaluate if it works nicely with the images I choose to feature on the digipak.
Fonts
These fonts have been chosen by me to feature on my digipak. I will ask what the favorite is amongst my peers/target audience and use it on my digipak.
Friday, 16 March 2012
Thursday, 15 March 2012
Locations
We chose to film our performance footage in the drama studio at our college - because it had appropriate lighting and a stage we could set up. This is shown on the map
We have also pinpointed on this map where we shot our narrative parts of our video.
See maps below \/
We have also pinpointed on this map where we shot our narrative parts of our video.
See maps below \/
Pitch Feedback
After we presented our pitch to a potential audience (classmates of ours), we received feedback and noted down what the responses were - they are as follows.
1) Does the concept work for you?
The response was positive, with the audience commenting that is is 'good', 'funny' and 'original'. They were pleased with the idea.
2) Does our target audience match our music video concept?
Our target audience that we showed was deemed 'too vague'. Will shall work on refining who our target audience is so better to appeal to them.
3) Does our costume choice match our video concept?
We were concerned our first costume choice (Suits, balaclavas) would not work with our video concept - so change the costume idea and received feedback - the feedback was mixed, from people saying that it would work fine to people saying it would only work in certain circumstances.
4) Will the video be feasible? Are there parts that may be difficult?
Responses were positive, saying it would be easy to film - however we will have to be careful with choice of location so it seems authentic
5) Is our concept original?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=K5QvMHDvAig
1) Does the concept work for you?
The response was positive, with the audience commenting that is is 'good', 'funny' and 'original'. They were pleased with the idea.
2) Does our target audience match our music video concept?
Our target audience that we showed was deemed 'too vague'. Will shall work on refining who our target audience is so better to appeal to them.
3) Does our costume choice match our video concept?
We were concerned our first costume choice (Suits, balaclavas) would not work with our video concept - so change the costume idea and received feedback - the feedback was mixed, from people saying that it would work fine to people saying it would only work in certain circumstances.
4) Will the video be feasible? Are there parts that may be difficult?
Responses were positive, saying it would be easy to film - however we will have to be careful with choice of location so it seems authentic
5) Is our concept original?
Feedback informed us that our concept was original, and they were happy with it's originality and narrative concept.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=K5QvMHDvAig
Problems arose
Yesterday, at around 9.00pm, the editing software (Premiere Pro) crashed on jake's laptop.
This is a slight set back as a around 2 hours of editing has been lost due to this error.
We shall be working tirelessly today to bring the video back to it's former glory.
Thanks for reading,
I've been Sam Woods,
Message approved.
This is a slight set back as a around 2 hours of editing has been lost due to this error.
We shall be working tirelessly today to bring the video back to it's former glory.
Thanks for reading,
I've been Sam Woods,
Message approved.
Update on Filming
Last Friday we continued filming, and shot the last few scenes of performance.
We all turned up once again in our costumes and filmed Will's singing scenes again (as our feedback said we needed more footage of him singing) and some clips of me playing guitar (as again feedback prompted us to film more of this).
We also shot some footage of me and Jake playing guitar together.
We used a fish eye camera lens on these new clips, and are happy with the way it turned out.
Thank you for reading my blog,
I have been Sam Woods,
Be safe.
We all turned up once again in our costumes and filmed Will's singing scenes again (as our feedback said we needed more footage of him singing) and some clips of me playing guitar (as again feedback prompted us to film more of this).
We also shot some footage of me and Jake playing guitar together.
We used a fish eye camera lens on these new clips, and are happy with the way it turned out.
Thank you for reading my blog,
I have been Sam Woods,
Be safe.
Rough Cut Focus Group
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oERrVhuOorA&feature=player_embedded
This is the focus group we did for our rough cut of our media video.
This is the focus group we did for our rough cut of our media video.
Wednesday, 14 March 2012
Thursday, 8 March 2012
Costume
Costume used in our video:
Hawaiian/vibrant shirts
Denim shorts
Pulled up, colourful socks
Shoes
Ray ban style sunglasses
Hawaiian/vibrant shirts
Pulled up, colourful socks
Shoes
Ray ban style sunglasses
Wednesday, 7 March 2012
video concept summary
as seen in previous posts, the concept we have decided upon is 3 men acting socially unacceptable/awkward, and being unable to see why their actions are not deemed "cool" to anyone other than themselves.
the characters will embarrass themselves publicly (for example, being caught staring at a girl and awkwardly looking away when she notices) and put themselves into unintentionally dangerous circumstances (such as take illegal substances)
the drama in the video increases through out, getting more and more "heavy" as the video runs. The action will eventually reach the point where one of the members of the trio is accidentally assassinated by the other 2, who then have the task of disposing of his body.
This is the type of video we are shooting because it is entropic and gives a light hearted feel to contrast the gloomy and serious nature of the song it is matched to. This will give an element of humour to the video.
Tordorov's theory fits this video -
original equilibrium - group acting unacceptable in social situations
disruption - the group goes too far by getting a dangerous weapon and drugs
recognition or disruption - member of the group dies as a consequence of their actions
attempt to revert to original equilibrium - hide the body of the diseased member
new equilibrium - continue on when murdered gang member is disposed of
Props
List of props used:
tattooing needle (safely without a needle or ink)
car
wheel barrow
fake drugs (mentos, flower)
deodorant
fake blood (tesco's value ketchup)
guitars
drum kit and sticks
a student magazine
various library books (including a deborah meaden one)
Pitch!
This is the pitch we used for our video. We made this using Prezi.
I shall try to embed this and hope it works.
Story Board
Here is the story board we created to give us an idea of what we have gotten ourselves into.
Target Audience
We are aiming the video primarily at a target audience with an age range of 16-25, both male and female. The target audience consists of free thinking and free spirited individuals, who like to stand out from the crowd. Possible interests for our target audience hobbies such as urban sports (like skateboarding), music, social get-togethers such as music festivals. The people that the video is aimed at will most likely enjoy the alternative-rock, blues rock and good-old-fashioned-rock style music, bands such as: The Black Keys, Kings of Leon, The White Stripes, Foo Fighters, Queens of The Stone Age. The audience is likely to have a income in the range of A-B, and have sufficient disposable income to do the things the enjoy.
Update
Hello dear reader,
In this post I shall update you on where I/we stand on the creation of our Media Music Video. Lots to report -
1 - Filming has (perhaps temporarily) finished. We shot the last few scenes in and around Jake's house, and it looks pretty good.
2 - editing is well under way, we have thrown bits and pieces of footage together to try and create a coherent music video to match our specifications (specifications to follow in next blog post... see above).
3 - possible re-evaluation of music video. To get a good grasp of our music video and to establish the good from the bad scenes, and what defiantly works to what doesn't, we're creating a performance based music video using our footage. This performance video will hopefully work as a foundation for our final music video, and we should be able to place the narrative parts of the video around the performance parts.
4 - focus group to evaluate the music video and video ideas will probably take place later today or on friday the 9th of march, and we shall use feedback from this to decide what the next course of action is.
5 - if all goes will at the focus group we shall continue ahead as planned and work our narrative into the first draft
6 - if there are any suggestions to what we can change we shall meet as a unit and evaluate if these suggestions work for us, and if so, when/if we can film them, and where they shall fit in to the grand scheme of things.
Prepare for a late night blogathon!
Yours sleepily,
Sam
Thursday, 23 February 2012
Narrative Theories
In this post I will show some theories in how narrative can be used in a music video.
Levi Strauss believes that in media there are 'binary oppositions' - these are: Good and bad, rich and poor, eastern and western world, love and hate.
In our media video we have the themes of good and bad. Our main characters spend the video trying to portray themselves as 'the bad guys', but by never doing anything very bad. The things they choose to do are less bad than a stereotypical bad guy (such as messing around in a library), so it shows that the bad guys are also good. The audience in the video should have to decide if the characters are good or bad guys.
Barthes believes there are 5 things that get an audience's attention in media. These are:
the enigma code-audience is intrigued to solve the problem
the action code audience is excited to solve the problem
the semantic code audience is directed towards an additional meaning
the symbolic code audience assumed characteristics based on costumes
the cultural code audience finds a meaning in the words/text/lyrics
23rd of the Feb
Today we are capturing our video onto the mac computers.
We shall also begin editing today, and seeing if there is any more footage we need to shoot.
If there is, we shall probably film it next week.
Friday, 10 February 2012
TODAY
Today we shall be beginning to edit our video. We shall do this in a team of Jake, Ed and myself. It will be done using final cut pro on Jake's macbook pro.
We're all very excited.
Thursday, 9 February 2012
Digipak Analysis - I Might Be Wrong (Live Recordings)
The front cover of the album is very unassuming, using dull colors and having the name of the album and name written in a very fine print on the side of the album, modestly. This may be because Radiohead are a popular band, and people seeking out this album will already know what they are looking for. Also featured on the cover is the Radiohead icon/logo, a crying little devilish creature. This may help fans spot the album as it grabs the attention before the album name or band name do.
This digipak seems to have been made more for old fans than for new fans, and doesn't have a lot on it to catch the eye of new audiences.
Digipak Analysis - Only Revolutions
The cover is very simple and eye catching (pictured top). This design reoccurs throughout the digipak. The tracklist is on the back of this, and it again a simple theme, listing them in order down the centre of the image.
The digipak folds out to reveal 2 more images of flags, and a slot for the disk and booklet to go into. I didn't like this design as I felt it may damage the disk not having it properly protected. The booklet includes lyrics and pictures of the band. The CD uses a different flag image but still sticking to the same theme as the rest of the digipak.
Actors
In our video we shall be using the acting talents of Will Lloyd, Jake Vaughan and myself. This is because we feel these actors suit the characters we want to portray in the video, and also the availability of these actors is good because they ar
e in our video group.
The pictures of our actors are shown below, from left to right, they are Will, Jake, and me.
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
Update
In light of recent events (which are: lack of funding, lack of internet skills, and lack of willingness to wait 23 days for a shirt to be delivered), we have made a small change to costume.
The group will now be sporting shirts found at local charity shops. Today we went shopping as a unit, and selected some of the finest pieces Ludlow had to offer.
We're going to be so pretty.
The group will now be sporting shirts found at local charity shops. Today we went shopping as a unit, and selected some of the finest pieces Ludlow had to offer.
We're going to be so pretty.
Thursday, 26 January 2012
Goodwin's Theory
Andrew Goodwin's theory is that there are 6 points that can be found in music videos -
1) there is a relationship between the lyrics and visuals
2) there is a relationship between music and visuals
3) music videos demonstrate genre characteristics
4) the record label will want close ups of the artist
5) frequent reference to the notion of looking
6) often include intertextual references to film and TV shows
I shall now put Goowin's theory to practice, by using the music video for "Thou Shalt Always Kill" by Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip
Point 1 - a link between lyrics and visuals
This features heavily in this music video, as Scroobius Pip walks around the city doing actions as he discusses them. For example, in the image below, he snatches an NME magazine from someone proclaiming "thou shalt not read NME"
and again, as he walks past a sign that says "coca-cola" and pulls a kit-kat out of his pocket to throw away, he says:
"thou shalt not buy coca-cola products whou shalt not buy nestlé products"
This happens many times through-out the video.
2) there is a relationship between music and visuals
This is very noticeable in one part of the video particularly, however it is present through-out with cuts in time to the beat.
Scroobius Pip takes classic albums and throws them away, "The Beatles, were just a band. Led Zeppelin, were just a band..." etc. As he does this he moves around the screen to different places in time with the beat Dan le Sac provides. It gives the impression of teleporting as he jumps around the screen...
3) music videos demonstrate genre characteristics
the music video shows genre characteristics in some places, and not so much in others. For example, they use comedy in their lyrics and match them to what is shown on screen - often taking stereotypes of the rap genre but poking fun of them.
Here, Scroobius teaches the viewer that "guns, bitches and bling were never part of the 4 elements, and never will be"
4) the record label will want close ups of the artist
this is seen through-out the video, but only with Scroobius Pip, the front man of the band. Dan le Sac appears shortly in the video, but not for very long. This could be conventional as front men are always more in demand to be seen, especially over DJs.
Here is Scroobius with Dan.
5) frequent reference to the notion of looking
the video mainly focuses on Scroobius, but at times the camera does zoom out, or pan to a (often female) character, to get their focus from the viewer.
6) often include intertextual references to film and TV shows
Very many intertextual references, from famous bands, to product names, and even politics. This video is full of intertextual references, start to finish!
What we need for our video (costume/props)
Costume
We need sunglasses for our video √
Trainer/sports shoes √
Bum bags - not yet
Hawaiian shirts - not yet
Vibrant socks √
Props
2 spades √
Toy gun (ask Limberg)
Fake blood √
Car √
I will update this list as we can tick more items off the list.
Friday, 20 January 2012
Action Plan
Step 1:
Research media products, music videos, album covers.
Step 2:
Story board, time manage, choose costumes
Step 3:
To begin filming, continue updating blogs
Step 4:
Finish filming, have feedback
Step 5:
Edit and get feedback
Optional step 6:
continue editing, filming, etc according to feedback
Research media products, music videos, album covers.
Step 2:
Story board, time manage, choose costumes
Step 3:
To begin filming, continue updating blogs
Step 4:
Finish filming, have feedback
Step 5:
Edit and get feedback
Optional step 6:
continue editing, filming, etc according to feedback
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
Time Management
We have worked out when members of our group will be available for filming and editing, and collected this information together so we can work with top efficiency.
Thursday, 5 January 2012
Permission
I emailed the Novocaines asking permission to use the song "Cup of Coffee", which the band gave me permission to use, as well as a free version of the song. After a discussion with the group we decided to use a different song by the band, "Ragdoll Blues". I emailed for permission again, which I received, and then purchased the track from iTunes.
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