Thursday, 17 April 2014

Digipak


Digipak Panels

This is the front cover for our digipak design, this is the album cover than in stores and online will be the thumbnail for our album. For our digipak we designed all on the images using Adobe Photoshop, the particular effect we used on the front cover of the album was called 'Cut Out'. This effect also disguises the identity of the wolf/human. We manipulated the image so that is is different to the rest of the digipak. For the text we decided to use green text as the song is song 'Green Eyed Monster', we used a darken green text colour as it emphasises the darkness of the background forest image. By placing the text in the centre of the album cover it means it catches the attention of the eye straight
away as it is big and very bold.


The back cover of the digipak is very similar to the front cover to keep with the theme of the digipak. We have used similar effects on both the front and the back cover, however the image on the front cover is just the wolf alone in the woods, whereas the back cover image is the Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood together in the woods. The image on the front cover is darker which shows evil and negativity as he is alone. The back cover image is brighter as it shows the wolf happier within himself as he is with the one that he loves. This correlates to the music video as the wolf is sad when he is alone but it happy when he is with Little Red Riding Hood.









Album Advert
































This is the album cover that we created for the promotion of our album. We created this advert with the desire to use the same picture for both our advert and our album cover in order to gain brand recognition. We used this image as the cover of our advert because we thought it would appeal to our target audience demographic which is boys ged 14-18. we wanted to create an impression that our music would appeal to boys who were: individual, something of a loner, slightly rebellious, working class, casual is dress sense and with a zany sense of humour. The pose suggests confidence and slight aggrestion. This music is slightly 'in your face', and is individual and is unlike anything that you've ever heard before.

Most music at this age demographic is advertised in a gritty, urban environment. This is particularly true of rap music. We deliberatly chose a rural environment with trees in the background to show a degree of individuality and something that would grab the viewers attention.

The trees symbolise that fact that most people are not individuals and all dress, think, act and behave in that same manner. our artist and our public are not like that other 'trees', they are individuals who stand out and have the courage to be different.

Tuesday, 11 March 2014

Evaluation Question 4

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation?





Different Media Technologies

For Evaluation Question 4 we explained how we used different media technologies in the process of creating our music video from the beginning to the end of the making of the music video. These technologies also aided us in some parts of creating the music video. By using technological convergence we have merged different technologies together such as our smart phones and the computer to transfer images between them by bluetooth for example, we have used this for our benefit throughout the process of research, planning, construction and evaluation. These are all explained in the video. I also created a video using a website called 'Animoto', and this website allows you to make a 30 second video which including pictures and text. The video that I created shows the different equipment that we have used in all stages of our music video and also gives information about how we used them to our advantage for our project.

Some of the technologies that we used in the process of making our music video were;
  • Camcorder
  • Tripod
  • Smartphones (iPhones)
  • Photoshop
  • Final cut Express
  • Social Network (Twitter,Facebook)
  • iMac
  • Blogger
  • Bluetooth
  • Facebook
  • Animoto
  • Wordle
  • X-Mini Speaker
Research

In the research stage in the beginning of our music video, we used a few different media technologies and social networks website to gain research for our project;

  • Youtube 
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Survey Monkey
The most important website here was Youtube, as Youtube is a website where all music videos are uploaded for everyone to see. Because of this we could watch multiple music videos to get inspiration for what ideas we could incorporate into our music video. This allowed us to also see music video from a variety of different music video directors how will all have different ideas and visions. We studied the top 100 greatest music videos, this gained us a good insight into different music video allowing us to get ideas for what we wanted to do for our music video. In particular, we listening watched music videos from artists in the indie genre that we have chosen to do. By studying these videos, we could see how the music videos in this genre as made in terms of style and themes.

We also carried out a focus group and a vox pop to gain research from different people to what their opinions were on music videos. This was the best research we did as they could give us a honest opinion on their views on music videos. This is the most effective way to get ideas for our video by seeing what other people prefer in a music video it terms of ideas and styles.

Planning


When planning for our music video, we only used some of the technologies out of the ones that I listed above. The main ones were;
  • Youtube
  • iMac
  • Smart phones
The most useful technology that we used through the planning stage was the iMacs. We used the iMacs for many different planning tasks. To prepare for our music video, we had to complete many planning sheets so that when we came to the construction part of the project, were completely clear on what we were doing so that we could efficiently record our music video. We also created an animatic, to do this we took pictures of each of the scenes on the storyboard that we had drawn and then used Bluetooth to transfer the images from our Smart phones to our the iMac. We then used Final Cut Express to edit the images together so that the animatic demonstrates the structure of our music video.

Construction

The construction of the video was the main part of the project as this was the part that involved making our music video. This is also the section of the project where we used the new media technologies as we incorporated them together for our benefit throughout the construction of the project. To record all off our music video the main piece of technology that we used was the digital camcorder, the tripod and a monopod. The digital camcorder that we used was not of the best quality but there were good features about it such as; it is very light so that when filming for hold periods of time it does not become tiring. It is also very easy to use so that when getting out the camera to record there was minimum preparation that was to undertake to begin recording. We used the tripod as much as possible throughout the filming of our video to try and obtain the steadiest shot possible. We also used it because we did not have a fourth member of our group so we used the tripod to hold itself up. However many shots we did we also used a monopod so that we could do moving shots, especially in some of the narrative sections of the music video.

Once we had recorded all the footage that we needed, we had to upload our footage from the camcorder onto the iMac that we were using. We imported the footage straight into the program, 'Final Cut Express, so that we could begin editing as soon as possible. Final Cut Express is a very advanced software program but with experience that we have gained over the last two years we had many ideas of things that we wanted to do with tour footage.

Once we had completed all the editing of our music video we then had to create a digipak and magazine advert. The digipak would be the 6-panel album which would include our CD as well as information and artwork by the band. The magazine advert would be a one-picture poster which would include reviews by a range of different prestigious music magazines and newspapers. To take the pictures for the digipak we simply used our Smartphones, and then used the Bluetooth features on both the Smartphone and iMac to transfer the images from our phones to the iMac to then begin editing. To make both the digipak and the magazine advert we used Adobe Photoshop on the iMac's. We used different effects for both the album digipak and the magazine advert so that they are not the exact same, however both the main album cover picture and the advert picture are the same.

Evaluation

For the evaluation section of the music video project, we did not use too many different media technologies as most of the evaluation stage involved writing on our blogs. However we did use some media websites which were beneficial to the evaluation of our music video project. We created images in Photoshop which explained the different conventions of our music video by also comparing them to other popular music videos, mostly videos in similar genres of music as ours. We also created a prezi using a website called 'prezi.com', were we showed how we used made the combination between our main project and our ancillary tasks. `








Thursday, 6 March 2014

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from audience feedback?























This is a image that I created using a website called Wordle. To create this image we watched old research videos that we had created such as our ancillary tasks, vox pops and focus group. By watching them we picked out words that had been used in our videos and them imported them into the website. Words that had been used more frequently appear bigger on the image, as they are more popular. this allowed us to see what the people we used for our ancillary tasks preferring in music videos. So by using this picture we could include certain aspects and conventions from the image so that it could appeal to the widest demographic, which is what most artists would aim for and we have done that same.




These are screenshots from the vox pop we made back in October, for this vox pop we asked different people about their opinions on music videos. From this we got ideas on what type of ideas we should use when brainstorming trying to create an idea for our music video. By asking a variety of different people who all have different opinions, we were able to create a music video that would hopefully appeal to the widest audience possible. This is effective because it allowed us to see what different audience members prefer in a music video which affected the ideas that we came up with. 

Once we had filmed the vox pop, we were able to come up with possible music video ideas that we could then ask a focus group to find our their opinions on our ideas. 

This was our focus group where we asked these two students about their opinions on our music video ideas. In this video we demonstrated three ideas to them explaining the ideas, then would discuss on what their opinions were on our ideas. After demonstrating our ideas it was clear that the two students preferred our third idea which was the idea about creating a spin on Little Red Riding Hood. From this focus group we were clear on the final idea we were going to use for our music video. Although we tweaked the idea slightly after this focus group, the focus group was still useful to see what idea the students warmed to the most which gave us confidence in our idea. 


This was the audience feedback to the rough cut of our music video which we showed to a group of media students applying for higher level media studies. All the students had different capabilities and different ideas and views on our music video rough cut and this was the feedback that we got from that day. This feedback was the most useful as they criticised our music video by identifying the faults in our video so that we could correct them before creating a final cut of our video. By analysing this feedback we then knew what we had to do to improve our music video. 



Tuesday, 4 March 2014

Evaluation Question 2

How Effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks(DVD Digipak, magazine advert)?



There are distinct connections between our music video and our digipak and magazine advert, especially between our album digipak and album advert. This is because we have used the same image for both of them to gain brand recognition for our album. We have manipulated the album cover image using an effect on Photoshop so that although it is that same image as the album advert, it is a manipulated image. By doing this we created an image that will be recognised at being our particular brand. An artist that has recently done this is Pharrell, for his album cover and all his marketing adverts  he has used the same image to create a memorable album cover that people recognise because they see it in all types of media and the image becomes memorable in an audiences head. This was what we tried to aim for when designing our album cover.

Another similarity between the digipak and the advert is that the text colour scheme on both images are very similar and distinct. We did this to catch the attention of someone in a shop who sees our album cover or someone reading a newspaper or magazine who might be interested in our album due to the design of the album cover, this is what we hoped to achieve with our album cover.

We also filming much of our music video and took pictures for our digipak in the same location. This keeps the general theme of our digipak and music video the same so that they are both linked to each other so that someone who sees the digipak can see a constant theme throughout our digipak, advert and music video.

Our music video links well with our digipak and advert, there are many shots in our music video that are very similar to the framing on images within our digipak. In particular in the shots where the wolf is lip synching, in many of these shots they are shot as mid shot, which is how the album cover image is framed. Another link between the digipak and the video is the constant reappearing figure of Little Red Riding Hood throughout the digipak and video. This is another memorable aspects that is featured throughout our music video which allows an audience to relate the music video to the digipak.

Our digipak has a simple design and follows many conventions of album covers and digipaks within the same genre of indie music that our music fits into. Album covers of indie artists are normally quite plain, featuring single images of the band members, especially in the case of a debut album like ours. Our digipak includes pictures which introduce the members of the band with tags showing their names. Our digipak also features some information about the band such as Twitter and Facebook tags allowing people who like our music to follow us on social media websites.

Monday, 3 March 2014

Evaluation Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 

For this evaluation question we constructed a comparison between still shots of scenes from our music video 'Green Eyed Monster' and stills from popular music videos that we thought would have similar cinematography within them. In these comparisons we also compared the genre conventions of our music video compared to the conventions of the example music video we have used such as props e.g. guitars and microphones.

This is a more close up shot of the main band member/front man performing in a music video. Including the wide shot of the whole band, this shot is used to focus on a particular member of the band. These shots can be still or moving shots. This type of shot shows the band members playing their instruments. This shot is used a lot in many genres of music as it allows the viewer to get a closer look at the band members so that the visual connection to the band members them is greater than wide angles shots.




This is a shot that we used regularly in our music video which is a guitar close up with is used very frequently as a convention of music videos. It shows the band members using instruments so it is not used in as many pop videos as they do not include a band with using instruments instead of computers and other technologies. This convention of band members using live instruments is predominantly seen in then indie and rock genre of music videos. With this shot, we synced up the guitar playing to the music to seem as the guitar player was really playing to the song.
This is a shot type which shows the entire band also normally predominantly used in music where there is a live band. This shot shows them as they are all performing together normally as quite a wide shot. The main man of the band, most likely the main singer, is always standing in the middle of the shot as the other band members stand behind them, usually symmetrically. The drummer normally features behind the lead singer, however in our music video we did not use a drummer.
This type of shot is not only just used in music video as well as in TV and Film. This type of shot of two characters walking towards each other is normally used in narrative including two characters, who are in a relationship or about to show affection to each other but hugging or kissing etc used in romantic context. This is the case in our music video as the two characters are starting a relationship and this shot is where they meet up and hug.
This extreme close up angle shows the phone being used which is a convention seen in many different types of music videos for many reasons. One of the main reason this close up angle is used in music video is that is it normally specifically placed there for product placement.  In the comparison screenshot the phone is used to advertise the brand of a Windows phone. We placed this shot in our music video as in shows an important part of the narrative as it introduces the Wolfs girlfriend 'Little Red' seen at the top of the phone.
This is a very intimate shot type as is shows a close up of only the main band member. This shot is a very popular convention used in all types of genres of music video, as is allows the viewer to connect to the main member of the band as they are looking directly into the camera while lip syncing to the music. In shot types like these,the viewer focuses more on the words and content of the song as there is less on the screen to focus on thus diverting their attention to the song instead of the visuals. 
This is one halfd  digipak design and when comparing it to other digipak designs from artists within the same music genre as ours we saw that our digipak follows many of the popular digipak designs from other artists. The digipak includes many features seen on popular digipaks designs, such as Twitter and Facebook images, advertising fan pages. The middle panel on the digipak is an image of the main member of the band and the narrative, The Wolf. On either side of that image are too images which are very similar so that the digipak is symmetrical.
This is the outside of our album which includes three main images. The front cover is the image of the Wolf in the forest which we chose as the front cover because the image is a juxtaposition between the bright light on the Wolf and the dark woods behind his showing him as a 'Lone Wolf' The middle image is the back cover and it has the song list on it same as all popular album covers. The picture on the left is a picture of the full band including tags showing the band members names. Many of the pictures on the digipak are connected including similar themes from locations that we also using for the filming of the video.





Friday, 28 February 2014

Media Genre Theory

Definition of Genre; the word 'genre' is taken from French and and derived from Latin and Greek, in all three language it means; kind, sort, class. Genres have characteristic features that are known and recognised by audiences and it it used to group texts together. Most of the time genre is not fixed and some films have conventions that overlap different genres, such as action-adventure or romantic-comedy.

Conventional definitions of a genre are based on the particular conventions within that theme, such as a theme, structure or style of media, which are shared by the genre, to make that genre unique to others.

Tuesday, 25 February 2014

Audience Research Discovery


 This is a picture that I created using a website called Wordle. Do make this picture, we watched our music video feedback video to see what words were used by people that we interviewed that day. We then inputted these words into Wordle.com, and the words that were used more frequently are larger, showing the popularity of the different words.

Thursday, 20 February 2014

Audience Theory - The Effects Model

The Effects Model explores the general consumption of mass media to the public and how this media effects them and their subsequent behaviour. This model explains how the audience are completely 'passive' and 'powerless' to the message that they are being presented with, normally considered to have more negative effects rather than positive. The audience doesn't have any power in controlling the effect that the text has on them, instead the power lies within the message of the text. The effect is also known as 'The Hypodermic Model', as it is like the audience are being injected with powerful dominant messages and the audience cannot disagree with the message and can only accept it.

The Effects model can be seen in our video in some way, an example that I can think of is how if our music video received millions of views, there are a few props in our video than could be seen as being 'product placement', such as an iPhone or games console. These could sublimely influence an individual to want these products just because they saw someone popular using it. This could be a type of an effects model in a slight way.

Audience Theory - Cultivation Theory

The Cultivation Theory was developed by George Gerbner and is focuses on the long term effects of the consumption of media texts. The theory explains how audiences becomes desensitises by the repeated consumption of violence images in the media whether through TV, Film, Internet etc. There were many films that ere banned in the 70's due to MP's believing that these violent films would corrupt children and provoke them to part take in acts of violence such as The Exorcist (1973) and The Hill Have Eyes (1978). In the 70's these films plus many others were on a banned film list in a time called the 'Video Nasties'.

However the modern younger generation of kids are more exposed to violence images on the media platforms such as the internet and video games, many children are desensitised by these images due to heavy consumption of them.





Cultivation theory suggests that audiences get desensitised to violent images after repeated exposure to them. A good example of this is films that got banned on release such as The Exorcist (1973) and The Hills Have Eyes (1978), however now the younger generation would not see the problem with films such as these as they tend to watch more violent and horrific images that they have become desensitised.  It also states that heavy TV viewers are shaped by the media they watch. This can be applied to music videos in the context that viewers may get desensitised to images such as nudity and violence. For example, genres such as rap and hip hop have a high amount of gang culture in their music videos, which in theory could cause audiences to be desensitised to the idea of drugs, weapons and the gang culture.

Tuesday, 4 February 2014

Star Theory

The star theory is a idea constructed by Richard Dyer and it is an theory where celebrities are manufactured by companies artificially, but are being represented as being real people that experience real emotions. Companies do this to gain great financial gain from the celebrities because they build that celebrity to fit into a certain genre and demographic. People within that demographic will be interested in that celebrity as they conform to that genre and should get popular very quickly. This is planned by the companies and if the celebrity continues to grow then single, album and merchandise is released so that fans by these so that the companies make a financial gain from the celebrity.

Dyers theory is in three sections which are;
1. Audiences and Institutions
2. Construction
3. Hegemony

Audience and Institutions

This section is about how the celebrity is only put together for a financial gain. The institution that creates the celebrity decides how they market the celebrity around the target audience. When music changes or the artist gets older, companies can then change the image of the artist. There have been many artists that have had an initial target audience to appeal to, and then when the target audience gets older then the company alters the image of the artist; a good example of this is Miley Cyrus. In her early career Miley Cyrus was known as Hannah Montana, a role model from the Disney Channel show 'Hannah Montana'. Once Hannah Montana finished and both her and her fans got older, her record label must have decided to change her image into the teenage turned adult 'bad girl'. This has been seen with many female child actresses who grow up in the music industry or in television, such as Britney Spears. The company will change their image based on their age and current culture such as fashion, dances etc.

Construction
Construction is where the star is purposely built around a particular audience and is not as 'real' as their fans believe them to be, instead they are very artificial. The people that create the image for a celebrity will normally give them a particular feature than separates them from other celebrities in their field. An example of this is Lady Gaga, who has an outrageous fashion sense. This is created by the institution that controls her to make her stand out from the other artists such as Adele, who is not known as a fashion statement.

Hegemony
Hegemony is how the audience relate to a celebrity because of a feature that they admire within them. A fan of the celebrity will idol this celebrity for this trait and some will try to copy the attitude that the celebrity presents. Although this is normally positive because many celebrities give a very positive attitude, some celebrities get involved in negative activities, such as heavy underage drinking, and taking drugs. These then have repercussions of young people getting in trouble with the police because they were trying to replicate an image presented by a celebrity they idolise.










Wednesday, 29 January 2014

Album Cover Exercise


This is a album cover I created for a exercise to practice making album covers, for when we eventually make our album cover for the song we are making the music video for. To make this I used a random Wikipedia article generator to come up with the artist/band name for this album cover exercise. For the title of the album I used a random quote generator and found a quote then used the last four words of it which were, 'the presence of witnesses.' To get a picture I went onto a picture blog website 'www.flickr.com', and used the third picture across as the background for the album cover. I came up with the idea of making a album cover with reflective text on when I saw the picture I randomly chose, as the picture is split along the centre, I decided to make the text reflective to match the background picture. I did this by simply making two of the same text, same size and same font and then flipping one text so that it's a reflection of the other piece if text. I make the two different texts colours that stand out from the background but are not colourful, to stick with the general monochrome theme to the album cover. I also believe that by coincidence the title of the album matches the theme of the album cover which I think shows people that are almost self contained and keep themselves to themselves. I used a very clean and simple font which I downloaded off of 'www.dafont.com' called 'Headlines', I then installed the font into Photoshop so that I could use it for the font for the album cover.

I think this exercise was very good practice for designing our real album cover as it allowed me to experiment with different ideas on Photoshop based on a background image I had been given. I now will feel more confident about designing the album cover for our band as I can base a general theme for the album on whatever I like allowing me more freedom to play with different techniques and styles on Photoshop.

Popular Album Cover Analysis

This is the album cover from Kendrick Lamar's debut album 'Good Kid Maad City' (2012). This album reached number two on the Billboard 200 album chart and sold roughly 240,000 copies in the first week of release earning the highest amount of copies sold of a hip-hop album in 2012. The album now has been certified platinum and of the end of December 2013 has sold 1,109,000 copies.

This album cover was hand picked by Kendrick Lamar as the picture shows so much about his life as a self portrait and how he was raised throughout childhood. The album cover is set out as a polaroid picture to show the age of the image, it also gives the album cover a vintage look. The picture explains a lot about Kendrick's life, in the picture are two of Kendrick's uncles, and to the far left is his grandfather, and in the centre is Kendrick when he was a baby. The eyes of his family members has been blacked out Kendrick says for 'personal reasons', but in the album her explains how both of his uncles are in prison and his grandfather passed away but he was a criminal is his younger days. The uncle that is holding Kendrick is showing a gang sign, showing how he was involved in delinquent activities. Kendrick is the only person in the picture that hasn't been blacked out to show innocence since he is just a child.
The items in the picture also tell a story about Kendrick's life as there is his baby bottle on the table, next to a 40oz bottle of beer, explained in the album how member of his family members were alcoholics and he was being openly exposed to this even when he was just a baby.

The text on the album is handwritten, similar to how people would write on polaroid images, giving it a very unitdy look as it looks like is has been done really roughly. There is also many marks and rips on the album cover to show how the picture is very grubby, old and hasn't been stored well.

The album cover for this is very effective as is shows a peek in Kendrick's life before even hearing the album, this allows the user to almost enter Kendrick's life throughout the album.

Saturday, 25 January 2014

Feedback of Our Music Video Rough Cut



This is some feedback we received from a class of media production students who viewed our music video and then discussed what they liked about the video, and also what they believe can be improved about the video. They gave us good criticism on our video and also gave us some interesting ideas that we could use for our video. We can use this feedback to improve our music video and also correct mistakes on our video that were notice even though some obvious such as the background noise, nevertheless this feedback is helpful for use to progress in finishing our music video. 

Thursday, 23 January 2014

Music Video Rough Cut



This is the rough cut to our music video 'Green Eyed Monster'. This is our rough cut of the video so there are many errors with it that will be corrected for the final video. Some of these problems involve audio problems, where the audio hasn't be correctly cut out from the video layer. This is the main problem with the current rough cut. There are also issues with the editing of the video, such as the continuity of editing throughout the video, an example is the pace of the cuts in the video. We are in the process of now making the full complete music video and we will use our rough cut to see what else we can do to improve our music video.

Tuesday, 21 January 2014

During Further Editing

We have got to a point in the editing stage where we have now roughly finished the first minute or so of our music video. This includes the intro to our video and the intro to the song. The process of editing the video is taking longer than we expected as there is so much footage that we have recorded we think we filmed 'too much'. Since there is so much footage it is taking time to select the parts we want from each clip meaning we are spending a lot of time re-watching our clips to choose what parts we want to use.

Our timeline in Final Cut involves many different layers so that while editing it is clear what layer is being used and we can cut between different layers. Also since in most of the lip syncing shots the whole song is begin sung, all the clips are now synced up to the music so it means we do not have to waste time trying to sync each clip up with the music as they are already in time with with the music. 

Organic and Synthetic Bands/Groups

In the music industry there are Organic band/groups and Synthetic bands/groups. Organic bands or groups are created by people coming together and making music to then be discovered by a record label, who then markets the band on the qualities that they have, hoping that they become popular. The record label will have to market the band to the correct audience. Organic bands were more have been more dominant since early bands such as the Beatles. The Beatles were a band that formed by themselves in late 50's and then did tours to become more popular, to eventually become to biggest most popular band in the world ever.
The Beatles have been ranked as the greatest band of all time and have an estimated album sales of 600 million album sale worldwide.
In the UK alone they have had more number one albums and have sold more singles than any other British artist/band.

In 1966 was the first synthetically made band were The Monkees who were put together by film-maker Bob Rafelson, who originally created the group for a TV series about a 'band who wanted to be The Beatles, but were never successful.' The TV sitcom aired from 1966 to 1968 and had 53 episodes. All of the members were all actors but could also play instruments but were not as near as musically talented as The Beatles at that stage. After the sitcom was cancelled in 1968, The Monkees become a full time band. The Monkees did not tend to writ their own music as none of the members were able to do this as they were not professional musicians, instead they had music written for them and they would perform the music and make albums. The band became very popular and at their music peak in 1967 outsold The Beatles. As of 2012 the band has sold 65 million album and single copies worldwide.

The 90's was the beginning of multiple synthetically made boy and girl groups. These groups were formed by record labels who try to market a particular image of the boy or girl band to try to bring them into fame to make the companies money.

Friday, 17 January 2014

During The Editing Process

Since we had finished filming all of our footage for our music video, we then began to capture all the footage from our camera into Final Cut Pro, which is the program we use to edit with. This gave us all of our recorded footage. We then started to roughly cut all of the footage so then we would end up with all the usable shots for our music video. This gave us almost 10 minutes of footage which was much more than we expected, so we are now in the process or beginning to edit all the shots together to firstly made a rough cut of the music video. The once we have a rough cut we can then finely edit the music video to create the whole finished edit. This is what the timeline of our music video looks like now as we have yet to begin cutting the clips together, this is a screenshot from Final Cut.


Tuesday, 14 January 2014

Re-Filming Shots

Today we refilmed particular shots and also filmed some extra new shots. These shots for for the intro of the music video and the ending. For the intro the werewolf is in his room and is about the mark off the day on the calender which is the full moon.

For this we made the room dark by pulling down the blind and turning the lights off. This made the room completely dark and was too dark to do the shot. This is what the room looked like with the blinds pulling down and the lights on for the purpose of the picture, but without the lights on the room was too dark to film the intro sequence.




To make the room not too bright we used a little mood light and had Terry hold it in place so that we could get the correct and efficient lighting in every shot. This light worked out very well as it didn't make the shot too bright but not too dark. It was lit enough to see what's happening and still gave off the impression that it was filmed at night-time.  For every shot the light source would be moved so that the light wasn't too strong and gave away  the fact lighting was being used. We used this throughout the whole of the intro section until the werewolf went to bed. We tried to recreate the same angle from the closing shot of the intro and the opening shot of the song, even though these were done on two separate occasions.

For all of the filming done on this day we used a monopod except for the closing shot of the intro where we used a tripod because we wanted a completely stable shot.



Saturday, 11 January 2014

What Is A Digipak?

A digipak is a packaging type used normally as an artists album which is used to store the CD in and also display artwork to do with the album theme. A digipak is also often used as a limited edition or deluxe version of a album as they involve much more detail than a regular CD case. The artist can choose what they want to feature on the digipak to allow the packaging design to be very personal. Some digipak's have been considered as artwork as some has been designed by famous artists such as Andy Warhol.

This is the digipak for Rihanna's album Loud (2010), and the album got many positive reviews from critics for the 'upbeat material and Rihanna's vocal  performance.' The album reached number three on the US Billboard 200 chart and sold roughly 200,000 copies in the first week of it's release and of the end of 2011 sold 5.7 million copies worldwide.

The digipak for this album is well designed and though tout. Firstly I noticed that the title of the album is almost a juxtaposition to the design on the digipak. The album is called 'Loud', however the theme of the digipak seems to be very pure and innocent as Rihanna is wearing a light colour dress and is walking through a rose bush. The colours on the album are very rich such as the predominant amount of red of the album, such as Rihanna's hair and the roses on the six panel package. The album is a two disk edition, so it means it has two places for the CD's to be placed. Both of the CD's are designed in the same way having a rose on each of the CD's to carry on with the theme of the flowers. The colours of the roses on the CD's are different to the colours of the roses on the six panel digipak as the CD's match the colour of the dress Rihanna is wearing. Throughout the digipak there is a goodamount colour coordination.

Wednesday, 8 January 2014

Filming of The Band Sequence

Today we filmed the band sequence. For this we had to use a drama room in our school so that we could get a plain black background. By using this room we were also able to use the advanced lighting in that room. This allowed us to play around with the lighting in our video so that we could create a particular lighting effect for the filming of the band sequence. Since there are many lights to use, we had to make sure that we had the lighting pretty much even so that we can minimise the shadows in any of the shots. Since we filming in a variety of different angles, we had to keep altering the lighting so that in every shot the shadows were limited. In some shots though we used particular type of lighting such as a spotlight.

For this scene, we only used a spotlight to get this effect. This would make the background dark and Tom very bright, however we wanted a straight on shot, but due to the camera needing to be in front there was always a shadow on Tom, to change this we moved as close to the spotlight as possible so that the camera and the tripod would fit under this.

Tom lip synced the whole song through with this camera angle so we can use it whenever we want throughout the music video. We also made sure that the spotlight wasn't too bright otherwise the light would glare off of Tom and into the camera so we would not be able to see him probably.

For some of the lip syncing parts, we also used a monopod to get moving shots of the wolf singing. By using a monopod we could get much more smooth shots rather than just using the handheld method. We also used the monopod to do instrument closes ups on the guitars. We would sync this with the music in the editing stage in a way to make it seem like the guitarist is actually playing.

We changed the lighting for these shots because the cameraman would be moving around we tried to prevent an shadows of the cameraman being shown on the singers or band members. We had a prop throughout these sequences which was a mic, this was supplied so that the singer could look as if he was performing in the band sequence.

We run into a few problems while filming the band sequence, the main one was the the tripod that we had we not tall enough for some of the shot angles that we wanted to carry out, so we had to improvise by using things in the room such as tables and chairs. We make sure that the camera was still level in the shots so that it wasn't slightly canted. Another problem that we had is that there was some technical difficulties with the lights and the lights kept on switching off halfway through the shots, so we had to film quickly so that we could get everything we had planned to film completed so that it's ready to edit.

















Tuesday, 7 January 2014

Most Memorable Greatest Music Videos 98 - 88

Out of the 100 greatest music video's there are many very memorable videos, which have influenced the way that music videos are made today. All these videos bring something different to the history of the music video and many have used completely diffrent methods to make the video individual and unique.

98.. Smalltown Boy - Bronski Beats (1984)

This music video is a very significant video in the history of the music video. The video features a gay man tht moves to a new city for a new life, you see this through the opening shot on the train tracks. However, in this new city he is discriminated due to his sexually. Throughout this video, he is very shy as he keeps himself to himself and keeps his head down to show this. In this end of the video, he is walking in an alley and it approached by a group of guys. in the next shot he arrives to his house with his mum answering the door accompanied by a policeman, as he was beaten up by the group because of his sexually, resulting in him moving back to his howtown. The impact of the video was stronger in 1984 when the video was released as non straight sexually was not accepted in society as much as it is in modern society. 


96. 21 Seconds - So Solid Crew (2001)
This video is by a British rap group called the So Solid Crew. The song is called 21 Seconds and in the song each memeber has 21 seconds to introduce themselves, as the group was new and this video would hopefully by their breakthrough, which it was. In the song there is a repeated line "I got 21 seconds to go", which is why the song plays on each member having 21 seconds. This video also had good special effects for a music video at the time as each member would have a special 'power', as some would have the power of fire or wind. In terms of a black british hip hop group this video was very big for the culture on British hip Hop. 
95. My Favourite Game - The Cardigans (1998) 


This video is just about a woman driving dangerously, the reason for this in the music is not made clear but the song is about her failing love affair. The video had three different endings, and the directors did not know which to use. In one ending she dies, in one she gets up from the crash and is fine, and one where she gets her head cut off from the car crash. The directors decided to go for the comical ending where she has the car crash and gets up fine, but then gets hit with the rock which might of killed her or knocked her out. This music video had a very high budget due to all the stunts that took place in the video taking the total cost of the video to £220,000. There was also much controversy surrounding the video due to the blood and violence throughout the video, also because MTV feared that this video would encourage teenagers to drive reckless, so the video was initially banned from many music video TV programmes. 
92. Rock It - Herbie Hancock (1983)


The music video for Herbie Hancock's song 'Rock It', is also a very significant song and video. Herbie Hancock was originally a jazz musician, but in this sound he was one of the first people to experiment with hip hop sounds, such as scratching of a turntable. In this video there are many different machines and sculptures that are moving around and doing repeated actions, making the video very creepy to the viewer. Since in this song there is no lyrics, the video is almost synced with the song such as the scratching of the turntable is synced up by the video to seem as if things are being quickly repeated and cycled as a scratching does. Hancock being a black musician, in the early 80's found it very difficult to get his videos including himself on MTV as MTV refused to play music videos with black artists in them. Herbie is rarely seen through this video and when he is seen it is through a TV within the music video. This was the only way that he could get his music videos on MTV. However this music video was banned in Britain due to scenes of sex by the dummies was being shown, such as a dummy masturbating in the bed.


88. I Want Love - Elton John (2001)

The music video for Elton John's song I Want Love was very significant for one reason and that was the shock that Robert Downey Jr was the one lip syncing the song. Robert Downey Jr is the only one in this video as he walks from room to room in a large house. At this point in his life Robert Downey was a rehabilitation from use of cocaine. This meant that Robert Downey could use his personal issues to portray real emotions throughout the video. The whole video is recorded in one whole shot so it took many times for Robert to get the part completely right, to get a compelling performance. 








Second Day Of Filming

Our second day of filming was much more successful than our first time. On our second attempt filming we shot all of the sequence of the human waking up, getting dressed and leaving the house. This when very successful this time around. We started by planning what shots we had to complete that day so that we could use our time efficiently.

We started by filming the first shot that is shown when the song begins to play. We have not filming the intro do our music video yet but there is no need to film in chronological order because the clips can be reordered in the editing process. So the first shot for when the music starts is the human raising up out of bed while lip synching to the opening vocals of the song. We then film all of the shots of Tom getting out of bed and going into the cupboard were we have a jump cut from him going into the cupboard to him coming out of the cupboard, as if he got changed instantaneously. We did this by using a tripod to keep the camera completely still so that the shot looks as if it is continuous. If the camera moved slightly, the shot would not be successful.

When we came to school and got our computer, we uploaded the raw footage into Final Cut Express so that the footage would not be lost if the tape gets damaged etc.

Monday, 6 January 2014

Director Case Study - Emil Nava

Emil Nava began work in the film industry as a runner boy for production companies. This introduced him in the film industry and allowed him to work his way up through the business. After working as a runner, he graduated to become a assistant director, which allowed him to manage the video shoots. He then began making adverts for big companies. Even though adverts obtain a higher production value and pay, there is a strict limit on creative freedom which Emil did not enjoy, so he then began to make music videos. Music videos allow a lot of creative freedom so Emil could base a music video on whatever he liked. Emil started by shooting videos for independent record label making relatively low budget music videos with budgets low at £5000.

Emil freelances for OB management, and their aim is to nurture talent and match to right director with the right artists. This was Emil Nava's first release music video for a independent record label from the group Kid British with the song 'Our House is Dadless. In this video Emil showed good knowledge of a music video and was able to create a well done music video for an upcoming group. The video was made on a relatively low budget of £20000. To cut down costs, Emil casted local people to be extras in the video. The whole filming process took only a day and took 2/3 days to edit. This video also very simple looking, allowed Emil Nava to become more popular and branch out to more famous artists to expand his workload. 

Emil now has worked with artists such as Rita Ora, Jessie J and Ed Sheeran, and has made multiple videos for these artists because of his style of making videos. Jessie J has been a artist that Emil has worked with now many times, and every time the video that Emil creates has been a big success. The first music video he directed for Jessie J was the music video for her single 'Price Tag'. (2011)

In this video, Emil shows Jessie J to be a 'good girl', using many bright colours to make Jessie J be perceived as a good girl to allow her to be popular with a young aged audience. He uses the upbeat, feel good song and then matches the sound with the visuals by using quick cuts between shots.
This video and the song became very popular. The song was number 1 in nineteen countries and has sold 1,070,000 single copies as of November 2012.

Another music video that Emil did for Jessie J was for her single 'Do It Like A Dude'. This video shows a different side of Jessie J, a more naughty, promiscuous side to her. This video is very dark and raw with images of nudity. This gave Jessie a change of identity are allowed her to branch out to a wider audience.



Sunday, 5 January 2014

Miley Cyrus Music Video Controversy

In the past, Miley Cyrus was known for her Disney Channel sitcom 'Hannah Montana', where she played a role of a girl with two lives. One life being a normal schoolgirl, and the other being a famous popstar. Miley Cyrus was in the past known for being a sweet Disney star, however recently she has took the approach of many other former Disney stars and decided to change her image. Miley Cyrus is known more recently as a naughty popstar that is always getting into trouble and showing off her body on national television and in music videos. Britney Spears was also a former Disney star and decided to take this approach of changing her image. However more explicit Miley Cyrus becomes, she also becomes more famous and well known by doing so. Due to Miley Cyrus's recent acts, she is becoming a iconic figure as a 'good girl gone bad' following many of the former Disney Stars that proceed her.

Miley Cyrus became popular by the mainstream audience from her music video 'We Can't Stop'. The video for We Can't Stop divided opinions, as many people believe that the music video was too sexual as there are many different images of her and other woman flaunting their body and taking part in sexual acts.


This music video has launched Miley Cyrus's music career as a big mainstream star as she continues to make more music. This video allowed Miley Cyrus to come back into the 'limelight', becoming the most talked about topic on social media. And now Miley Cyrus is becoming more known to a more broader audience of multi generations. Miley Cyrus's music videos have been so popular that the type of body movement 'twerking' was added to the Oxford Dictionary. This type of dance has been around for a few years but Miley Cyrus's music videos have allowed the dance to become a worldwide sensation. This shows the huge effect that Miley Cyrus has had on the media.