Final Music Video

This is the final version of our music video.

DigiPack outside cover

This is is the outside of my DigiPack, on the right is the front and the left is the back.

I decided to make the Pack look like a teenage girls diary because it reflects the meanings of songs well. To get this effect i hand drew the covers and coloured them in Photoshop. The characters on the front are Tom and Rosie, the band members. I made the heart look like a speech bubble so it looks like Rosie is saying 'Betty'.

Whilst on the back the heart has dropped and broken and the track names are flying out.

I decided to make the cover look overly stereotypical and cliche because the songs are sarcastically stereotypical and cliche.

I also put the record labels logo on the back so people are aware who the band are signed to (some people choose albums etc because they like other bands on the label)

And the DVD logo on on the front so people know there is a DVD inside and not just the album.

Finally i put a green promotional sticker on the front telling you its a bonus pack and has more than normal inside

digipack inside cover

This is the inside cover of my digipack album. The left side is the inside of the front and the right is the back.

I made the front look like the girl whos diary it is had drawn in the and stuck pictures of Tom in the heart because she is in love with the band and Tom.

The back is a collage of photos of the band at the video shoot, live shows and from photo shoots with the lyrics of their song 'Love is tough' "never was a tale of such woe, than that of Juliet and Romeo" Which the girl has written over the photos she stuck down, i chose those lyrics because they fit to how the girl is feeling.

Magazine Advert

This is my magazine advert for my DigiPack. I decided to use the same theme as the DigiPack it self with the hand drawings coloured in photoshop and the text font Luismi Murder which is a handwriting style font.

Once again i put the record label on it, for the same reason, people may like other bands from the label and are therefore drawn to it. I also put the HMV logo so people who see the advert are aware where they can buy the album from.

I decided to put quotes from two well known music magazines on the advert. Which if people respect the general opinion of those magazines they may be persuaded to buy it if they weren't intending to in the first place.

In the heart i've written what what is on sale, what you get in the pack and when it will be released, in the same font as on the album to make it even more clear what the advert is relating to

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

1: This image (taken in the bar scene) shows our main character stealing some vodka from the bar. This section is accompanied by lyrics saying 'stole some vodka, took a swig'. Showing that we have related our narrative to the song. This happens quite a lot in the song and video, however none of them are as synchronised as this.

2: This image typifies the way the record company would want their artist to be presented as it depicts the band standing on a stage in front of a seemingly large crowd of cheering fans. Making the band seem loved and popular.

3: This is a shot of Becky dressing up in an 'emo' style. This is a clear representation of genre, as emo is one of the largest groups of fashion around. This also correlates to the song name being 'Slits on Your Wrists' as self harm is a trait often associated with the emo style.

4: The bathroom scene in musics video is a very common affair. For example the music video for Bowling For Soup's song Emily revolves around this sort of venue style toilet. And also this bathroom reminded us loosely of the one used in the film the Shining (that was also recreated in the film Charlie's Angels).

5: The camera styles we use (mostly in our live show footage) are often 'up-close and personal' to the band. They show the band and the bands' equipment closely and in detail whilst always maintaining a hectic moving theme to make the video seem more lively. This shot perfectly shows the combination of stylistic lighting and equipment shots we have tried to integrate into our video.

6: This shot shows our use of lighting in the video. Our most prominent lighting design was in the live show. We sent a clear email to the lighting staff at the junction describing what it was that we wanted. I think it turned out really well. At one point we also had a strobe light which worked really well with the video but I couldn't capture a picture of the strobe effect.

7: This shot not only shows our location, but character and clothing mise-en-scene. It shows the girls dress, the Junction and her make-up and hair.

8: This shot I got the idea from from watching other music videos. I liked the idea of the characters in the background and an inanimate object occupying some of the foreground. I think it makes the shot more interesting, as well as more stylised.

9. Before we filmed our music video I was watching a video for the live performance of the singer José González' song Heartbeats. I noticed that it looked very effecting because it used several close up shots of the equipment (such as the microphone and the guitar) and the singers face. I tried to recreate some of this style when filming, and this shot is the result.

This is a selection of 9 key frames from selected music videos (click to enlarge)


1) This is a shot of the music video for ''White and Nerdy" by Weird Al Yankovich, we chose the shot because at this point in the video the character is riding a segway and the lyrics are "They see me roll on, my segway". Clearly with the video referencing the song.

2) Is a shot from Chamillionairre's "ridin' dirty'', This shot tipifies the way the record label want to portray the artist because hes a gangsta with a big chunky chain infront of bright lights making him seem very important and powerfull.

3) Shot 3 is of My Chemical Romance's song ''Welcome to the black parade'' it illustrates the typical 'Emo' genre that MCR are commonly put into by having everyone dressed up in alot of black with pale make up etc.

4) The 4th shot is from another Weird Al Yankovich song called ''Fat'' the song is a mock of the micheal jackson song ''Bad'' and there for has extensive intertextual refrences to micheal jackson and his style etc. The video is a literal copy of Jackson's video but with altered lyrics and characters, it is a parody.

5) This screen shot shows a good use of camera technique by framing the crowd half brilliantly with the artist silhouetted in front. The way it is framed makes the performing artist This shot also uses lighting to create the desired effect.

6) Has a good effect of lighting by making the outside in total darkness and only lighting the center where the dancers are, much like the effect we attempted to have in our video, the lighting is also selective, giving each 'sound' a different light.

7) Demonstrates a clear use of mise-en-scene by putting each group of dancers in a different costume, these different dancers represent a different sound and rhythm in the song.

8) This is a shot of the Black Eyed Peas video for their song 'Boom Boom Pow'. I think that it relates to our video well as we have our lead singer Rosie dancing in a similar abstract style in front of a completely white background, which relates to this singer standing in front of a background that's completely green and black.

9) At this point in the video I took this screen shot as the song quotes Daft Punks' lyrics ''Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger'' as well as the dancers in the background are dancing in relation to the sounds and beat like in Around The World, also by Daft Punk.

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

This is a voice-over we made to our video to answer the question above. In it we talk about the effects and filming in our music video. As well as the digipack and magazine advert designs.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

1) Class rough cut feedback:

They thought that the shot with Rosie dancing in front of a white background was a bit tedious, and that there wasn't enough going on. However we thought that the lack of events in that time made the sudden fast cutting and active live footage straight after this scene more effective. Also, the band liked that scene very much, so we had to find a compromise for both. So we added the effect of fading Rosie in and out of the white background as she sings to make it more interesting to view.

When the main narrative character is in the bathroom, we were told that this section wasn't broken up enough, and that it was far too slow paced. We solved this problem by adding snippets of the life footage and breaking up the clips to the beat of the music (like we did near the beginning of the video when she was walking) so that they came over as more energetic and lively. The time cutting also added pleasing effects to the overall look of the video and scene.

We also had a lot more footage at the beginning of the video. We were told we had too many hair dying shots, they stretched out to almost fifty seconds without the music even starting, so we sorted out the most effective shots that got the point across and looked the best out of all of them before got rid of all of the other shots. This made it far more snappy and brings it down to a normal length of time before the music starts for a standard music video.

There was also a shot near the beginning of the video that didn't look right as it lasted too long. We cut this down and added a different line of video footage as well so it looked better.

2)Junction feed back.

On thursday 5th of november we went to the junction again for a group veiwing and feedback from a panel of judges from the junction who both have 20+ years of experience in the industry. Sadly, ours wouldn't play very smoothly due to the laptop it was on and after ours was played they got a different laptop to play the rest, but it was still good enough quality to give feed back on.

After watching my video Pete Edwards and Rob Tinkler gave feed back; what they said was that it tells a good story and the actors are very beliveable, the live shots look profesional and the crowd looked far bigger than it was. How ever they did also say that whilst both the live show and the narrative sections are good individually, they don't blend together very well, which spoilt the flow of the video. they also said that the artist needs to be established ealier on

3)Digipack rough feedback:

Feed back on my DigiPack was on going from family and friends. For the front and back covers (which i made in class time) Barney and Nick both made frequent comments about what looks good and what needs tweaking. The main points they made were that my original colour scheme wasn't as aesthetically pleasing as it could be and that the hearts needed to be more defined. I changed the colours from dark red and black to blue and a lighter red and i outlined the hearts in black to define them more.

For the inside cover and the advert (which i did at home) the main suggestions were that the text on the inside back cover wasn't very legible in red and that the there was too much text on the advert. To rectify these i changed the text from red to white and halved the amount of text in the heart.

4)Social networking feedback:

I posted my video with these three questions on face book and asked people to give me feedback:

1. In what ways does my video remind you of other music videos?
   
2. What do you think are the strengths of my music video?
   
3. What do you think are the weaknesses?
   

this is what was said...

In what ways does my video remind you of other music videos?

It follows the typical ‘narrative music video’ structure: it starts with the equilibrium which sets up the narrative before the song itself starts. It then progresses to follow-up the narrative interspersed with both crowd action and shots of the band themselves. The band then proceeds to dominate the video before the fade away. In addition to this, technical features such as the production companies and the title of the song and name of the band at the start of the video also make it seem professional.

It has a narrative behind the video with fast paced editing as engage the viewers' attention to the piece. Due to the handheld camera, it fits into the indie music genre of underground video like that of early Hadouken or more recently the band Hockey.

What do you think are the strengths of my music video?

Very good editing control: looks professional. Cut to the beat which I think emphasises the rhythm of the music. I particularly liked it when it cuts as Rosie motions with her arms in time to the beat, (just before the ‘drop’ is it?). Overall kept with the pace of the music, didn’t lag behind or move too fast. Good use of special effects with the fading in and out and the white-light backgrounds for Tom and Rosie. General look of the video seemed to be in keeping with the tone of the music and the narrative followed the lyrics fairly well. Camera work looked professional, not excessively slick, but in the style of music videos during the performance sequences especially. Being present at the filming of the crowd scenes I know how unresponsive the crowd initially was, and how they didn’t appear to fill the space. The camera shots don’t show this at all but instead give the impression of a packed venue.

Has continuity in edit and a variety of techniques.

What do you think are the weaknesses?

I think that generally looks very good; however, there are a few, subjective, issues that I had with the video. The narrative doesn’t appear to conclude fully which means that it seems unresolved, this is a noticeable issue as the setup isn’t fully explored. The title shot fades too quickly to see what the focus-pull has revealed. In one or two of the shots of the band performing the lighting is a bit excessive and washes out Tom’s face.

Could be argued that the camera work is handheld that it is not professional but could add to the charm. Is quite blurry in places though, but you mentioned that this was intentional.

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

This is a picture made in photoshop that shows the main aspects we used to reseach, plan, document, produce and promote my music video.

The top left picture is a screen shot of the social networking site Facebook. We used Facebook to promote the video shoot, i set up an event group asking people to come the the junction for the shoot saying when they need to come, where to meet and what they will need to do. This was a very succesfull way of getting a crowd in our video. We also posted the rough cut and finnished video on Facebook and asked people for feedback this was also an easy

The top right picture is of the physical technology we used and the programs we used to edit. We used a Sony HD camera to film, we also used a tripod to film the blue screened shots, which we edited on Adobe after effects on the Mac G5 computer. The rest of the footage was edited on my MacBook because that meant we would be able to edit far more freely as opposed to only being able to edit every monday and wednesday morning. We used our LG KU990 phones to take on set photos and location scout photos as the phone has a 5 megapixel camera which is high quality and meant we didn't need a digital camera.

The bottom left picture is of the video upload site YouTube. We used YouTube to up load our rough and final video so we could use the 'Viral marketing' technique and post the link in many different place to get more people to see the video. The final version of the video was uploaded to Vimeo because it produces a higher quality.

The bottom right picture is of blogger. We used blogger to document the production and planning of the music video.

Album cover research

Unlike pop albums, most indie, rock and alternative bands debut albums do not show the artist on the front, they are usually fairly plain like the Prodigy's first album and Franz Ferdinand's debut album both shown bellow

Some do show the artists on the front but often not in great detail like the kooks debut Inside In Inside Out shown below.

Magazine Album Adverts

Magazine adverts for albums differ slightly magazine to magazine and due to genre of the music they are advertising. But offten keep the same basic layout and style.


some adverts are basic and simple like this one for Rammstein's new album. the advert shows you the band name, album art work & name and date of release. this is the minimum key information to keep it interesting and to the point.



Whilst some adverts give a little more information but still keep it mainly about the visual interest like this one for 'The Chemists' new album which has the art work with the band name, album title and a picture of the actual album on top on the left.


In the middle is the release date and highlights of whats on the CD (people who dont know the album or somthing may see this and reconise a song and potentially buy it)


And on the right is a quote from a review by Kerrang magazine and the record lable ( some people may buy the album because the respect the opinion of the Kerrang reviews or they like other bands on the same lable)


Some adverts for albums rely more on text and less on the visual asthetics of the art work like this Funeral For a Friend one which has a fairly dull picture refrencing the album with the band name/logo and album name.







Then bellow it has quite alot of text information about the album.

Digi pack work

The style/layout of my digipack Cd case i want is going to be like a teenage girls diary and have 4 pages that turn on a ring bound spine. It will have two Cds inside it being a page each, the first will be the album and the second will contain the video, the making of the video and remixes of the album by a selection of DJ's. the main single will be remixed by Tom the keyboardist & sampler aka TheKnobJockey (The KnobJockey is his DJ name) . The third page will be a book of art work and inspiration references from singer song writer Rosie. the fourth page will be a booklet with special thanks, web links and lyrics.

Feedback

On thursday 5th of november we went to the junction again for a group veiwing and feedback from a panel of judges from the junction who both have 20+ years of experience in the industry. Sadly mine wouldn't play very smoothly due to the laptop it was on and after mine was played they got a different laptop to play the rest, but it was still good enough quality to give feed back on.

After watching my video Pete Edwards and Rob Tinkler gave feed back; what they said was that it tells a good story and the actors are very beliveable, the live shots look profesional and the crowd looked far bigger than it was. How ever they did also say that whilst both the live show and the narrative sections are good individually, they don't blend together very well, which spoilt the flow of the video. they also said that the artist needs to be established ealier on

Album cover inspiration

This is the album cover for the Gallows 2009 album Grey Britain. I think the album cover is simple but effective, it portrays patriotism to the country with the flag but shows how its a broken country by draining it's colour. the album it's self is about the same veiw on broken britain.

What is a DigiPack

Acording to about.com the definition of a DigiPack is this:

Digipacks are a type of CD packaging made out of card stock or other heavy paper/cardboard material. Digipacks can flip open like a book, or it can have three parts, so that one portion of the packaging opens to the right and one to the left, with the CD in the center portion. Usually, the portion of the digipack that hold the CD is made of plastic like a traditional jewel case CD - the plastic part is simply attached to the paper background.

Digipacks were first created by MeadWestvaco, and their product, called Digi-Pak, is trademarked. However, as the format became more popular and began to be used by more manufacturers, the generic "digipack" came to be used to describe all soft CD packaging.

Digipacks have pros and cons:

They look nice, and many bands and labels like to use them for aesthetic reasons. The three section digipack sleeves opens up more design options because there is more room. However, they're more expensive than traditional liner notes and jewel cases.

• Digipacks don't crack like jewel cases do, but they will rip and eventually the paper begins to peel apart and separate.

• The trays in digipacks break much more often then in jewel cases. There's not as much protection since the outer portion of made of paper, so the teeth that hold the CD in place crack and fall out easily.

• When the teeth of the tray does break in a digipack, the CD falls out of the bottom of the digipack, because unlike jewel cases, there is nothing to hold it in.

• Digipacks can be more environmentally friendly than jewel cases because they can be made of recycled paper - however, they aren't always in fact made in this way.

How ever DigiPack's have progressed and evolved and come in all sorts of diffrent shapes and sizes now.

A DigiPack is most commonly, a special edition version of the album. And is normally released for a limited time at the first release or on a big aniversary of the first release if the album is really popular (i.e. 10 year aniversary).

DigiPacks usally consist of fancy case, a box or a sleeve etc. on the inside is the album (often with bonus tracks) a second CD with anything from live show footage to music videos to digital art work. there is also the occasional gimic item, a special guitar pik, stickers or drawings.

They are normally priced between £15 - £20