Music Video Final Draft

With our second draft the narrative within this draft is a lot more stronger than the first. We also experimented with faster edits and using more slow mo which, in my opinion paid off. We re shot all of the narrative to get a better collection of shots including different camera angles and changed some of the storyline as well (therefore going against our storyboard) which I think was good for the video as the original storyboard wasn't as good as it could have been and was quite confusing.

We didn't re shoot the performance scene as we felt that this was a good representation of what a rock video performance would look like. However we did make some quicker edits and put in more narrative shots so the two would blend well together rather than the performance scene dominating.

Digipak Final Product

For my second draft I didn't want to change too much from my original draft as I thought my first attempt was a well made digipak. However with my second draft I took some advice I received from feedback I got from friends and looking at my peers' work.

First of all I added the albums spine in as I forgot to do that on my first draft. Obviously all albums have the spine with the band name and album title on it as when you put them on a shelf side by side you can easily see which albums you want to listen to. The blue colour of the spine is a juxtaposition to the album name "Black Cloud" and I wanted to get across the whole things will always get better idea which is something I did in my music video of the protagonist finding someone he can be himself with at the end of the video.

I also added in a new image to the back of the album as I thought the colour element I used wasn't very good and I'd already used that on my inside cover. I added yet another image with an orange tinge to it to keep with the colour scheme for the album. Also adding the bar code and record label logo (EMI) shows a much more professional element to the CD as this is a key feature you would find on any album as the record label want to take credit for the album and the money the album makes as bands tend not to make much money from album sales due to the digitalisation of the music industry.

Digipak Poster // Final Draft

My digipak poster has typical conventions of an album poster such as a quote/review, album release date and what's included. Obviously I used the same main image as on my album as that way if someone was to buy the album they would automatically know what the album artwork was as they have seen the main image on the album poster. Also the main image is one of the main things that would draw you to looking at the poster in the first place. In my research I discovered that lots of album posters are printed in magazines and London underground stations which is of course very fast pace down there so the main image has to grab someone's attention if they are walking to get their next train but are also looking at the adverts on the wall. 

Also having a release date on the poster is key as then people will know exactly when they can buy the album. If you didn't have this there wouldn't be much point in advertising the album at all if no one knew when they could buy it. Saying what platforms it's available on is also very important in today's society as we now consume music in a very different way that we did twenty years ago.

The biggest form of buying music is of course Downloading so obviously you would make the album able to be downloading. However in recent years Vinyl has made a big recovery with younger kids getting into buying records. Because of this younger bands have now started to release their albums on vinyl to cater to all needs.

Evaluation // Question One

Media Evaluation Question One from joebryant206

Evaluation // Question Two

Evaluation // Question Three

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

At the start of the year I put a poll on my blog to get basic information from people for example age, gender, what kind of music they liked and what types of music videos they liked. From using social media this lead to me to find specific examples of what younger people like which turned out to be a performance element to music videos with a narrative alongside. Because my genre was rock I looked into other things that rock fans would be interested in.Because of my AS studies last year I knew that rock fans are big readers of Kerrang magazine and having looked at their demographics I knew I had to cater for the younger audience in my video as the 15-24 age bracket was the biggest consumers of Kerrang.

I also conducted a focus group were I ask questions about what people my age would expect from a rock video and where they would consume said video. Focus Group Questions Here This allowed me to get an understanding of what people would like to see in my video such as a performance and narrative storyline alongside each other as this is a key feature of a rock video. I also found what types of edits and camera shots people would expect to see such as close up shots to show emotions and fast edits to accompany the fast pace nature of the song. All of these elements would give me great influence on my music video which I then went on to film.

Once my first draft was complete I asked people to fill in some audience feedback questionnaires in order to gain an understanding of what was good/bad about my video and were improvements could be made. The positives I found were that people really liked the performance scene and thought it was a good representation of a rock video performance scene as the use of framing and fast edits fit the conventions of the song as well as the genre. However the narrative wasn't as clear as it could of been in which I decided to re shoot the narrative to make it much more stronger and understandable. I was able to secure actors for specific times and locations with my second draft (something I struggled with for my first) which made things much more easier for planning shots. One of the consequences of changing actors and extras was that I had to go against the storyboard in the second verse in order to make the narrative entertaining yet understandable which I really enjoyed as I was able to experiment with different scenarios and different elements of cinematography which made for a much more enjoyable filming experience.

One of the pieces of feedback I received from my teacher was to use a specific shiny edit on the antagonist in the final scenes to give a representation of hope and also represent one of the themes of the song of things getter better. This was a big improvement in my opinion as this scene was key to the narratives structure and something we really wanted to look good. 

Post production I conducted some more feedback of my final draft with the band that were in the performance scene to what they thought was good about the video or maybe anything they didn't like. I found that the narrative was much more clearer from their feedback and that the performance scene was a true representation on a rock performance scene with the mise-en-scene of instruments and clothes being the main part of that. Post Production Feedback Here 

From a theoretical point of view, Bulmer and Katz' Uses & Gratifications theory looks at how we as an audience consume media and how personal identity can effect our viewing. For someone viewing our first draft they could think completely different to some one else. The same with our final product someone could think it's the best video they've ever seen, another person could think it's one of the worst series of moving images out there. However who is right? It's all down to our personal identity of what we like and don't like.So by us taking advice from people around us we can cater to what they and other like minded people would like, granted we aren't going to impress everyone but no one ever can. Stuart Hall's reception theory can also be brought in here this theory is an active audience theory which sees the audience as being actively engaged in the interpretation of media texts rather than as passive consumers. Individuals receive and interpret texts in different ways. This theory also links to Bulmer and Katz as one person will see our video and possibly get a message from it of hope and striving for better. While other will take a completely different view of the video and why should they be wrong? Unless it's something completely off the wall perhaps.

Even things such as a persons social class could effect their interpretation of a media text. For instance a upper/middle class person could completely blank this message and say they can't relate to it in any way. However a working class kid could relate it as they may have gone through some hard times themselves and being outcast and that's the great thing about the feedback we received. Some people may have liked it for that reason while others may not have understood it because of their circumstances.

E

 

Evaluation // Question Four

Audience Feedback // Final Draft

Audience Feedback (Watch Here)

After we completed our final draft we decided to get some feedback from the band in the performance scenes to see how they liked it and what they thought was good about the video. Also I think they just wanted to see what they looked like as well...

iTunes Advertising

As one of the main ways we consume music now-a-days is downloading I decided to create an advert for my album on iTunes. First of all I imported the image of my album over the main advert of the iTunes Store which is first thing you would see if you were to be downloading songs on there. I included the text of "Includes The Single Black Cloud" which is a key feature to album advertising an online service such as iTunes as you only have a limited amount of space to say what the product includes. 

I also included the album cover in the "Featured Artists" section which is where the main downloads are shown which would mean it's been a hit that week and would allow more people to see said album. I imported the album artwork over another album, got rid of the original text and put my band name and album title underneath using the most alike text than the others on iTunes which was Myriad Pro.

Finally I showed the album in my iTunes where it would be after someone downloaded it. All I did for this was change the album artwork of an existing album that was in my iTunes and changed the artist and album name which shows an overall professional feel to the album advertisement and eventually ending in a product you can listen to much like a real album. 

Audience Feedback - Questionnaire

We printed out 10 questionnaires to give to people, who have watched our video, to fill out so we can learn what the audience likes and dislikes about our first draft.

Feedback from joebryant206

Shots from 29/3/14

This shooting schedule was different in terms of structure. We decided to get all of the solo shots of myself out of the way at the beginning rather than going through the shots in chronological order. We also replaced Niall Foot to play a different role as we needed to shoot the shot of the couple within the narrative with the help of Amelia Rothwell. Niall's original role will be replaced by Stacy Peacham between the 3rd and the 4th; within this time re-shooting with Kiera Jowett will take place as we are not satisfied by the shots that she is in.

In terms of these shots, I feel like these are an improvement.The weather does not really represent the mood of the song but this can be made darker within the editing process. The sun also created shadows on the pavement which can be seen in some shots. To avoid this we will try to crop them out within the editing process.

Digipak Poster

I decided to put my digipak poster in a magazine, on a bus stop and on a festival poster at the site itself which are three common places to find music albums advertised. Because my genre of music is rock you would therefore fins the advert in a magazine such as Kerrang or NME as therefore the right type of audience will see the advert as the readers of these two magazines are into this type of music. There would be no point putting this type of genre of music advert in a magazine such as Smash Hits as that is a pop music magazine and is not the audience I would want to target with this advert.

As for bus stops this is where a lot of adverts in general are placed, whether it be music, films or art in general. In London they use the London Underground as a way to advertise albums as that is one of the main forms of transport down there. However we aren't in London and that is the only city in England with an underground system so the for the rest of the country my poster would be on bus stops. This is a great type of advertising as a huge number of people travel on buses therefore a huge number of people will see my advert. Furthermore it will be a lot of people who may have never of heard of the band before. A great number of people might not go on to listen to the album but then a lot might then listen to it and then buy it as we dealing with the general public and not just a specific group of people. Therefore reaching out to a greater audience than at first.

The festival poster is a relatively new form of advertising, spread all around the site of a festival such as Reading and Leeds or Glastonbury there are posters all over the place of new albums, games and clothing lines. This is a great form of advertising for my genre of rock music as this type of music is what plays at these festivals therefore punters at these festivals will see the album by this type of band and want to check it out. That is of course if they aren't extremely drunk which we all know they probably will be.

Digipak Influence

You Me At Six - Sinners Never SleepThis particular digipak gave me a lot of influence on how I should lay out my own CD design. This album has a recurring theme throughout the design which also linked to the bands videos and promo shots which consisted of the band being arrested and held captive with the fingerprints and mugshots which appear in the video for 'Loverboy' On the inside cover of the digipak there are two photos of the band from different photo-shoots. I feel like this is a common feature of album products to have at least one image of the band in there somewhere. Therefore I used one photo of the band featured in my music video to create a verisimilitude effect between both my music video and digipak. Obviously there is a tracklist on the back of the product which is a key feature of albums and again is something I have used on my own product. On my product I didn't put an actual disc were the CD would be this is because lots of CD cases now have a sleeve where the CD is in much like on a LP. On this You Me At Six album this is a feature they have used and is why I decided to use it. 

Music Video First Draft

As a first draft I think our music video is looking really good. The performance shots look a lot better than our test shots as we shot it in a different room at the rehearsal studios which is a lot bigger than the other room and had much better lighting which helped with the shots and made them look better. Also the narrative is looking good with some good shots and a good storyline. However I feel like some shots could be made better and the storyline can be made stronger as an audience member may not understand what's going on so we may have to rethink some ideas but as a first draft it's defiantly a good place to start and we have some really good stuff to build on.

Some specific shots I would change would be at 0:19 in this shot it is a pan from right to left. However it is quite a slow pan and seems to slow the action of the video down as it doesn't keep to the fast pace of the song. However I think it can work as it is getting across the theme of  isolation as it is a point of view shot from the protagonist. From 0:58 - 1:19 it is all performance shots without any narrative this is because we couldn't shoot part of our narrative due to the weather so we had to fill these shots with other things we had which ended up being all performance shots. So we shall re shoot this part of the video to make sure the storyline of the narrative is much stronger and the overall video isn't dominated by the performance shots and will then run side by side.

Shots at 2:41, 2:49 and 2:50 which are all of the antagonist would need to be re shot. They are all still shots which don't work with the shots around them as the other shots are the protagonist walking towards her so there is plenty of movement in the shot. However when we cut to the shots of the antagonists they are still long and mid shots which completely stops the action dead and really slow the video down so we'll re shoot that with some kin of movement whether it be her walking or the camera moving to her.

Digipak First Draft

With my first draft of my album cover as park of my digipak I tried to stick to very simple texts and a simple image which I think I did very well. The main image is very calm and and peaceful so I didn't want my text to be very abstract and crazy to draw attention away from the album artwork although I did want my text to stand out. With my text being big and bold and in contrast with the main image with the text being black and the main image being full of clour I think it really does stand out. I think I will improve my Photoshop skills in the next few weeks as I haven't used it for some time and I completely forgot some of the skills I used really well in my AS portfolio.

With my digipak I used a similar colour style on the back of my album with the tracklistings using the gradient tool. I have tried my very best to stick to the colours used on my main image such as and orange style and blue to represent the sunset and the sky of my main image. I have used an image of the band on the inside cover of the digipak which is used by several bands on their digipak such as the You Me At Six album "Sinners Never Sleep" which uses two images of the band on the inside cover and Biffy Clyro's album "Only Revolutions" which also has an image of the band on the inside cover. 

I feel this is a good thing to do as then the people buying the album will immediately know who the band are and what they look like if they didn't before. Also I have included a page were the band thanks certain people around. On my product I didn't put an actual disc were the CD would be this is because lots of CD cases now have a sleeve where the CD is in much like on a LP.I personally can't think of any album which doesn't have this. Some of them have them in the lyric booklet, others have them in the digipak themselves which is what I have done. This creates a a bond between the band and their audience/fans as it gets across the message that the band really do appreciate their fans support.

Shooting Schedule

Shooting schedule w/ costume/props (23/2/14)

11am to 1pm (Wold Road)

Finished the narrative filming with actors Niall Foot.

Niall is wearing a typical outfit for the type of person associated with our style of music. Imagaine going to a rock or pop-punk gig and Niall would defiantly fit in. His skinny jeans, converse t-shirt and parka are all key to the mise en scene of my video as you would not expect to see an extra wearing tracky bottoms and trainers. As this is a rock video you would expect 'cool' clothes and Niall here is fitting into this genre very well.

4pm to 5pm (Rehersal rooms)

Reshot and finished the performance with Myself, Rob Pipes, Jack Coates and Jordan Mudd. Within a performance scene of a rock video you would expect to see the band to be dressed in cool clothes such as, skinny jeans, converse and band t-shirts. As for the mise en scene you would expect to see musical equipment such as guitars, amps, drums and microphones. 

Rob here is the guitarist of the band in the performance scene. He is clearly fitting in well to the conventions of a rock video by his clothes (A checked shirt, skinny jeans and converse) which are all stereo typically cool clothes. Also the guitar, amps and pedals in the mise en scene keep to the conventions of a rock performance as these are things you would expect to see.

Jack here who plays the bass player in the performance scenes. Clearly his attire is sticking to conventions of a rock video with his band t-shirt, skinny jeans, suede shoes and his devilish good looks. Within the mise en scene of the performance jack has his trusty red and black bass and his amp which is something you would expect to see in a rock video.

Holding things down at the back behind the drum kit is Mr Jordan Mudd. His clothing of red polo shirt and skinny jeans are a key convention of a rock video and does not look out of place at all. His set up of his drums is 99% of time found in a rock music performance scene as all bands have a drummer.

Text number one which is November Sky is one of my favourite texts I have found on www.dafont.com. For me it is very simple and effective and resembles the style of text used on the new You Me At Six album "Cavalier Youth" which I have analysed recently. I think this text would work well on my front cover and magazine poster as it is quite clean cut being straight and thin which will work well against the rather plain, quiet and peaceful setting off the main image. Text number two could also work on my album cover as it is much bolder than the first and would stand out more. However I feel it is too much of a contrast between the low key main image and this big bold text but the opposite kind of style could work well.

Text three which is Amplify already has a strong link to my genre of music in my song as it is very similar to the font used on the Marshall amps used by many many bands out there now. Because of this I feel there is a link between using it and the genre I have chosen for my song. However I feel like it could be too heavy and abstract for my front cover I only really want something simple and bold to work with the main image of my album which as I've said is very still and relaxed.Text four which is Lost Saloon is a text that I found and thought it looked very different to the other I had picked. It has a sort of old western vibe to it which I liked a lot, however I feel like it probably won't work with my album covers text but it was something different compared to my other texts which I thought was interesting.

Text five and six are both Moon Flower Font which are very simple and look very much like someone could of drawn them which keeps it simple which is something I want on my album cover as the main image is very simple as i've already said. I think this text could work well on my front cover but it could be a little bit childish as it looks very very informal which might not work on what would be a serious album.

Music Avert Planning

Having looked at several music adverts in magazines or just online I have found several key conventions. The album artwork should be the main image as that is what you're advertising and the artwork must stand out as that is what's going to draw the audience to look at it. Some adverts have small quotes which are reviews such as "Most anticipated album of the year" which mine will have on it. This can entice someone who is looking at the advert who might not usually be interested in the band  to go and listen to the album as there must be some big hype behind the band and they might want to see what it's all about. Obviously you should have the band name and release date on there as if you didn't there would be no point in advertising the album if no one knows any information about it.

An interesting feature I have put on my poster is a QR Code which allows you to scan the code with your phone and it will take you straight to a website to buy or listen to the album which is a relatively new feature but one that shows the postmodern society that we live in. You don't even have to go out to buy the album or log onto your laptop to buy it, just scan a small code and then straight to a website on your phone to download it.

Also I have included what's included for example what formats you can purchase thing album on. At this moment in time downloads are dominating the music industry with us being in the 21st century that is pretty obvious why. The CD is a dying art as less people want a physical copy and with downloads you have the album straight away and you don't have to leave your house for any reason. However in recent years vinyl has made a big comeback with younger people getting interested in records more and more so bands have started to notice this movement and have started releasing their albums on vinyl. This way they are catering to all their fans' needs.

I have included the bands website as now in the postmodern society we live in people want to know where they can get updates and news from the band which is mainly with Web 2.0. I have played it safe and just gone with the website rather than putting their Twitter or Facebook on there as if people go straight to their website there will almost certainly be links to their other social network sites.

Single/Album Poster Examples

Having looked at these three examples I can see that some key conventions are to have the main image be the artwork for the album which makes creating the poster a lot easier once I've created my digipak. Also to have plain yet bold text to make it stand out and easy for the audience to read. Always put the name of the band and album on their with a release date as if you don't then what is the point of having an advertising poster at all and maybe also put a quote on there something like a mini review for example "Most anticipated album of the year" to make it sound amazing and for the people looking at it who may not know the band to look at it and maybe want to listen to the song or band.

Music Video - First Edit

Most of the shots look really good and seem to be coming along nicely. However some of the performance shots will have to be redone due to slightly bad lighting and having to work with the room we have to make the shots look great. Some of the shot within the video could be a bit shorter for example the last shot of the singer goes on just a little bit too long which is something we can change when it comes to editing next time around. Most of the performance shots lack energy and movement. Because the camera is still in most of the shots in makes the shots look really boring and dull so when we re-shoot we will have more energy and movement in the performance scenes.

Shooting Schedule

9th February 2014

Shooting at my house for some narrative shots.
2PM - 5PM

Filmed a lot of shots for the narrative however we came across some shots with difficult lighting such as outside shots were the sun reflected really badly on the camera causing the shots to look poor. Although most of the shots looked really good and I am confident that this music video can look really good and professional once it's edited and completed.

Mise en Scene - Costume Ideas

I decided to include this lookbook video on my blog as the clothing company (Drop Dead) will be used by a few of the people in my music video. It will be used by some of the band in the performance scenes and our protagonist will also be wearing Drop Dead a some point I feel. Drop Dead is a very popular alternative clothing range with a shop in London and one due to open in Sheffield. Lots of bands including You Me At Six, Bring Me The Horizon and Don Broco wear Drop Dead and as they are rock bands and my genre of music video is rock I feel it fits the costume for the band to wear very well.

Another idea for costume is from a clothing line known as Become Antique which is another alternative clothing line worn by rock bands such as You Me At Six and Kids In Glass Houses. Same as before because of my genre of my genre I have chosen to recreate in video format this will work well for the band to wear or for the extras in the video to also wear.

Theorists...

Levi Strauss:

Strauss’ theory of binary opposites talks about the difference between the protagonist and antagonist within a media text. He argues that in every media text you can clearly see a difference between good and bad or girl and boy therefore creating an opposite. This helps us develop narrative as you already have expectation of what’s about to happen within the media text.  For example in a superhero film like Batman you will always expect to see the protagonist of Batman and the antagonist of The Joker or Bane. However in recent years this could be challenged as in some films and TV series. For example films such as Alien vs Predator or Freddy vs Jason have no clear protagonist or antagonist. This theory applies to my video because we have a clear protagonist and antagonist. Our protagonist has all black clothes on with the antagonist wearing all white clothes showing the contrast between the two.

Richard Dyer:

The representation looks at how media texts represent themselves to society and an audience. He closely studied the ideological and historical significance of film stars but also looked at media in general. “How we are seen determines how we are treated. How we treat others is based on how we see them.” Dyer looked at different areas including, what sense of the world is it making? So for example watching the news we see stories of crime and scandal on a day to day basis which leads us to believe that this type of behaviour is normal however is it really normal? He also looked at what does this imply? So again watching the news does it imply that everyone in the world is committing these crimes when most of the world is just getting on with their everyday things. However we like to see the unusual things that happen in this world as we don’t often see that in the everyday world in person but on the news that seems like all we see. He also asks if it’s typical of the world or deviant well again with the news it isn’t typical because a very small minority of the population commit these crimes. However the way it’s reported makes us think that these things are typical when really they aren’t. Who is it speaking to? With the news it is speaking to a huge audience of the general public as most of them will watch the news. People of all ages will watch the news so could take different opinions of the things that are reported. For example a story about Miley Cryus’ new video could be reported in a negative way. An older middle class person perhaps would agree and think it’s disgusting, while a younger audience may think she’s brilliant and completely disagree with the story. This leads onto the last thing Dyer looks at of how we respond to the representation. Again depending on the type of person, there will be different responses. You can look at the London riots of 2011 for this and link Stan Cohen’s moral panic and folk devils study to this. The media created a folk devil of young people around the time which made some people (mainly older people) terrified of young people. However some young people could completely see why these acts happened and again could completely disagree with the way the riots were reported.

Tim O’Sullivan:

Ideology is once mechanism by which a ruling group tries to deceive and control the ruled. If you look at two different artists and how their ideology is different. For example Miley Cryus’ new video for “Wrecking Ball” is her all about growing up and moving into a new image. Something that Brittany Spears or Christina Aguilera did when they were trying to get rid of their good girl image after being on a kids programme. If you compare this to REM “Shiny Happy People” which is about everyone fitting in and acceptance as everyone is included within the video. The type of cinematography in the two is very different. With Miley’s video there are lots of close ups of body parts such as her breasts and bum. However with REM there are quite a few long shots showing the entire band and therefore showing the bands togetherness rather than showing them as individuals. O’Sullivan argues that all media texts tell us some kind of story through careful mediation. Media texts offer us a way of telling stories about ourselves. This is not usually our own personal stories but the story of us as a culture. For example this theory could apply my music video as the main protagonist is a bit of a recluse and keeps himself to himself. There are lots of people in our society like that who don’t like to socialise with people and may feel trapped. A media text reflects the ideology of the culture it’s made by. So a lot of British television is about crime and deviance which is something that British society is full of and therefore reflecting our society.