Final Digipak

This is our final digipak idea. It features common conventions from the post hardcore genre by having images of the band on the product, especially the star image used. It also fits with the convention of punk rock genre where it uses artwork for the digipak. To fit with both conventions, we have combined the two, having the artwork on the outside of the digipak and photos of the band on the inside.

Final Advert

This is the final idea of our media advert. It features typical conventions of adverts, such as the reviews of the album from rock magazines, links to where you can listen to the band more and the logo of a place where you can purchase the album. The image used links to the other products that we have created and fits with the conventions of the post-hardcore/punkrock genres.

Covet - Rough Cut 3

In this rough cut, I have made improvements in the use of practical effects. For example: different fades and a stabilisation effect have been used as well as the several cuts have been added to the video.

Evidence of Star Image

The video starts and finishes throughout focusing primarily on our main character in the video who is both protagonist and lead performer in the idea that this will help the audience relate to this character and help establish that star image that we need to achieve.

We use many shots throughout the video some of his whole body however also some quite close such as this shot to show who the video is focusing primarily on and we want to let the audience achieve that sense of what he feeling through facial expressions that the body cannot show.

We are going with Andrew Goodwin's theory of presenting the Star image of the lead as more essential than the rest of the band in ways such as giving him more camera time and placing him center camera in performance sections of the camera.

Throughout the video we place him center camera without placing him to the left or right showing he is the focus in this narrative and it is his story.

He is primarily shown to great length throughout the mid section of the video so the audience can see the emotions radiating off the character through camera work and editing.

Again he is placed primarily center and in the middle of the band to show that he is the main focus and that this is one of the main reasons why our product will succeed and why they should buy it.

In the final scenes of the video we use many over the shoulder tracking shots throughout the care home to bring the audience with our star in a way that will hopefully closely show the emotional journey that our star has been on throughout these particular scenes.

In the last narrative scenes of the video we do introduce a secondary character in form of the grandma, however it is arguable that the scene is still primarily revolving around that of the primary character and the development of which he is undertaking at this point.

Feedback from Ben Young (Teesside University)

Ben Young, from Teesside University came into our college and listened to the ideas of our class focusing mainly on narrative. He believed that setting your audience up and then deceiving them at the climax of the video as " the audience likes to be surprised" and therefore straying away from the norm in our genre is a must to keep the audience interested past the 20 second mark. He believes we can not achieve the audience's full interest throughout the video if we only have the protagonist waking up and walking to see whoever the song is about throughout the video with sections of live performance, He believes there needs to be more happening with the the character of the boy throughout the narrative to make it interesting and to hint towards a different cause than to her grandma. We are taking this on board and plan to add extra occurrences during the walk to the home as to possibly develop the character more and to give the audience more to relate to in terms of Andrew Goodwin's theory of star image and the main character of the narrative being easy to relate to in terms.

Editing - Tuesday, 2nd of December

During this lesson we made more progress on the video by adding extra footage, changing the narrative (towards the end the grandmother isn't going to be awake so the shots have more impact), arranging extra shooting and by adding a fade out at the end of the video so that video ends smoothly. We added the fade out effect by altering compositing so that the opacity reduces as it reaches the end of the clip.

Storyboard

   

Peer Feedback

Our first rough cut was shown to a class of 17 pupils so that we could obtain feedback. This photo shows an overview of the feedback received, including the the most mentioned improvements suggested and strengths given.

Strengths:

Good lip sync
Good thought beats
Range of shots used

Improvements:
Improve pace of edit (make the pace link to the edit)
Stabilise the shots

Covet - Rough Cut 2

This is our second rough cut which has been improved because it has more footage for both narrative and performance, better thought beats and has footage from another setting (the care home).

We plan on improving this more by gathering more footage in order to get rid of blank spots (particularly the shot of him and his girlfriend) and reshoot individual shots that look fuzzy or shaky.

Track Analysis

Covet – Basement – Track Analysis from alexhester

Storyboard Adaptations and Changes

Covet - Rough Cut 1

This is the first rough cut for our A2 Media Project. For this module we have to create a music video that includes genre representation, lip sync and narrative.

The video begins with a shallow focus, extreme close up, of the vocalist/microphone in order to begin with lip sync. We chose to do this because the song begins with vocals and therefore we are linking the music to the visuals. The video then continues by cutting to the music (thought beats). On the third beat we are missing the footage that we are wanting to use so, at this point in time, we have replaced it with an image we intend to have in the shot.

So far, the footage reaches the end of the video. However there are a lot of blank spots because of our group needing to re-film some footage or having to find a place to put original footage.

Animatic

This is the Animatic from our storyboards which gives a brief overview of how we initially pictured our final idea for this product. there are a few differences however you get a lot of similar shots and the same narrative from this so it does not lead you away from what you see in the video.

Risk Assessment - Care Home

Digipak Ideas

Treatment

Editing - 18/11/14

Today we made progress on the first rough cut. The narrative shots captured so far have been added to final cut timeline. So far we have reached 1:06 and have edited individual shots by using stabilisation to stop them from shaking as much.

Initial Ideas

Equipment Analysis

The equipment we are planning to use is:
· A Tripod
· A Canon EOS 1100D DSLR Camera
· Track and Dolly
· X4 Lights

The first three pieces of equipment are going to be used for the entire video while the lights will only be used for the TV Studio for performance because of compatibility issues.

The Canon we will use in our video has HD video capture with 12-megapixel image quality. This will increase the footage quality in our video and make it look more professional. This camera also allows us to use zoom and allows us to get deep or shallow focus shots because of its automatic and manual focus settings.

The tripod will allow us to achieve steadier shots, especially ones that require us to capture a certain shot for a long period of time. This is important as we need our footage to look as clear and sturdy as possible.

By using the Track and Dolly we will be able to obtain a wider range of shots including crane or tracking shots and shot angles such as higher high angles. The track will also allow us to get steadier/more stable footage.

The four lights will be used during our recording sessions inside of the TV studio to improve our lighting and the visibility of the performers.

Advert Ideas

Choosing The Song

We originally had many ideas and drafts for the song choice of our media product. At first we went through different artists in our genre area and came to decision that we would use 'Emily' by Lower Than Atlantis.



However after planning the video for the song, Lower Than Atlantis released an official video for the song. We decided to change it as we didn't want the video to influence the ideas for our own project. We then realised how common it was for an A2 media group to want to use a song such as this and use the extremely plain and simple idea of a boy loving a girl and them falling in love during the song, and so we decided to change our idea and go for a darker, less joyful song which we could use to perhaps alter the narrative into something that no one was expecting and not follow the trend that has been set by so many videos throughout the course.

When thinking of a song we came up with 'Covet' by Basement which had slower lyrics and a darker tone which helped us achieve what we wanted to do in terms of mixing up what is usually seen in previous years.


The song is relatively short but there is enough time for us to get lip sync in the performance sequences and camera and editing in the narrative to get a good grade at the end of the course.

Budget Sheet

When planning out our music video project, we have come to the realisation that some of our ideas and plans for the video include a lot of travelling, as well use of props. Because of this, we have decided to budget our video and therefore estimate the outgoing costs that we need to think about before filming.

Narrative

Bedroom

No budget is needed for these shots as all props provided are already owned and is within walking distance of the college.

Flower Shop

£5-£10 is needed for the flowers, which will also be used in the Care Home scenes.
No budget will be needed for travel as it is within walking distance of the bedroom scene and college.

Care Home

£17 is needed for the Grandma's costume, which will include both costume and make up, that we will purchase the week before filming with the actor to get the right size costume and shade of makeup.

£15 is needed for travel, most likely, for both cast and crew.

Performance

Studio
No budget is needed for the performance as the setting is within walking distance of the college.
No budget is needed for props and equipment as the cast and crew are using their own musical instruments and the college has provided the crew with the equipment.

A total of £42 will be needed for the production of our product

Shooting Schedule

Casting Evidence

Location Recce/Risk Assessment - Bedroom

Location Recce/Risk Assessment - TV Studio

Location Recce/Hazard Perception - TV Studio from tlcurtis

Costume Evidence

Recce Shots

TV Studio

Bedroom

Care Home

These are the recce shots that we have taken for our video. These help us with the general framing of our video as to understand the size of our locations and an overall understanding how much room  our actors and crew have to use. This helps us plan where the equipment and props will go.

Call Sheets - Performance

Call Sheet TV Studio from tlcurtis

This is the call sheet for the performance side of our narrative. Like the call sheets for the narrative side of our video, this features a lot of details important for the cast and crew of the video so that they are aware of when they are needed and what is needed on set.

Call Sheets - Narrative

Call Sheet - Bedroom

Call Sheet - House

Call Sheet - Street


These are the call sheets created for the narrative side of our music video. Each post shows the scenario, location, shooting date, the length of filming, cast and crew who are needed, props, equipment and costumes that will be needed on the day/s of filming. This is important so that the crew and cast know what is needed and when.

Final Logo

Below are the three versions of our final logo design used for our record company, Gideon Records, each used for individual things in our coursework. All three versions of this design will be used in various pieces of our work.

The first one shown is the smaller of the three, as its primary use is as a watermark, this makes it easier to be placed things such as photos of the band and important documents (such as call sheets and the treatment).

The second one shown is the larger version of the logo. This version will most likely be the one used in our music video and will feature special effects to make the writing appear on screen at a different time to the glasses.

The final version features the original logo but with a black background. The green rectangle is replaced with a faded green circle. This highlights the the main logo and gives the white writing more character. This one will be used in our final video as well as the main background for my blog and the Gideon Records Ltd Youtube channel.

Nine Frame Analysis

This is my nine frame analysis of Lower Than Atlantis' music video for their song 'English Kids In America'. I chose this band because they are considered to be of the same genre as our chosen band, they were also one of our first choices for the video. This song was chosen because, out of all their videos, I believed this one had a larger variety of camera angles and mise-en-scene aspects to talk about.

Audience Profile

From our audience profile questionnaire we have found a basic idea of our target audience. We did not have many answers but the answers that we did get showed clearly the usual interests of this age and type of person. Our researched showed:
· Our audience is between the ages 17 to 21
· Are mainly male
· Often listen to a good amount of music every day
· Like a range of genres which usually fit into the same category including rock, pop, punk, alternative etc.

From this information we have created an average person for this target audience and how we imagine they are. This is Adam; he is 18 years old and studies at a Sixth Form College doing music, music technology and maths. He is fairly intelligent and has a good amount of friends from college and school. He spends a lot of his time socialising, playing games and listening to music. In his own time he uses social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to talk and find about the things that interest him like different artists. Adam enjoys quite a large range of music including Pop, Rock, Alternative and Punk as well as other genres. Usually he listens to artists/bands such as Basement, Biffy Clyro and Nirvana. Here is Adam’s playlist of some songs he likes:

 

Audience Research Analysis

This is our analysis for our Audience Research based on our Audience Research Questionnaire results. This is used to help us gather ideas on who our main audience and help us in choosing shots that will appeal to them the most. As shown in the text above, the majority of of people who took our questionnaire and had an interest in our genre were 17-21 year old males, however our results weren't that reliable due to the small amount of answers and the fact that the genre was answered by a higher percentage of males to females and therefore we cannot assume that every female who would take our questionnaire would appeal to the rock genre. On the other hand, the females who did take our survey showed a high interest in rock genres which validates our conclusion that both genres (mainly males) aged 17-21 are our target audience.

Map 2

This feedback (on page 2 of MAP 2) given by my tutor shows an overview of how well done my currently assigned work is. The first table shows which tasks are better and which need improvements. Next is a comments section that shows strengths and suggested improvements followed by three suggested targets. At this point of time, my work is at level 2/3. From this I have decided to attend AST sessions to improve my work quality and quantity.

Lyrics Breakdown Version 2

This slideshare shows the lyrics breakdown in which our group listened to the song and gave our opinion on what the lyrics mean. This is helpful for a lot of music videos as it can give ideas for shots to use in the video in order to stay true to the lyrics. Due to our genres music video conventions, our video may show exactly what the lyrics say but will give the off the same nature of content. This version shows a few changes that we feel represent our ideas for the music video better.

Old Treatment

Application of Theory

This is my application of theory taking ideas from media theories expressed by Andrew Goodwin and Stuart Hall and explaining how I plan to integrate them into my music video to help relate to the targeted audience and keep key definitive ideas of the genre.

Lyrics Breakdown

This slideshare shows the lyrics breakdown in which our group listened to the song and gave our opinion on what the lyrics mean. This is helpful for a lot of music videos as it can give ideas for shots to use in the video in order to stay true to the lyrics. Due to our genres music video conventions, our video may show exactly what the lyrics say but will give the off the same nature of content.

Audience Research Questionnaire

We made this questionnaire to gather information about our audience and what they think should be included in our music video. This will enable us to link our music video to the appropriate target audience for our genre (rock) and make sure we get a good opinion and review from them.

We began with simple questions, such as 'How old are you?' and 'What is your gender?', in order to gather information about who our target audience is. This is so we can appeal to them as much as possible while filming our video.

The questions following give us information to use with designing our music video. This includes whether the music video is narrative based, performance based or a balanced mixture of the two. It also helps us gain insight as to what typical conventions are found in these types of music videos, giving us the option of whether to include them or not.

Here is the link to the questionnaire:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/D75CCTJ

Permission Request

For permission of the use of the song Covet by Basement, we chose to contact the three people who will have permission to the song- the band and their two record companies. We used our record company email (gideonrecords1@gmail.com) to do this and contacted them via the band's email and on the contact section of the two record companies. This is so that we can avoid copyright issues as much as possible.

Mood Board

Created with Padlet

This mood board shows several ideas that we have for our music video. This includes prop ideas, how the video will start and also several music videos that we might take inspiration from as well as a few song ideas.

Advert Analysis - Lower Than Atlantis

Advert Analysis - Don Broco

Digipak Analysis - A Day to Remember (Common Courtesy)

A DAY TO REMEMBER - COMMON COURTESY

Common Courtesy is the 5th studio album released by pop punk band, A Day to Remember. The sleeve of the album features the band name at the top of the sleeve, with the album name at the bottom with the same black font. The sleeve itself is a cream colour which contrasts with the black, as well at giving full attention to the CC in the middle, standing for Common Courtesy, which shows part of the artwork for the album artwork. The audiences point of view goes straight to the centre of the artwork.

The artwork for the album shows a common feature in A Day to Remembers other albums (the man standing in the middle) which fans could relate to. Some of the songs on the album are about how far the band have came, from playing in their home town to world tours. The image resembles their home town, combine with what looks like a crowd of a tour, like the worlds have combined.

Digipak Analysis - Biffy Clyro (Only Revolutions)

 BIFFY CLYRO - ONLY REVOLUTIONS

Only Revolutions is the 5th album from, the Scottish rock band, Biffy Clyro. The album artwork features two people of the opposite sex, facing each other. They each have flags appearing to come from their faces, the man having a blue flag and the woman having a red one to represent their gender. The flags tie into the title of the album as they are usually used in revolutions. The grey clouds covering the sky suggests that the songs featured on the album will be of a darker nature.





The back of the album shows a new flag, a green one, which isn't shown on the front cover. It also shows the track listing show listeners can see what songs are next etc. The grass from the front cover is continued on the back as to make it shown that its in the same area.






The actual CD itself shows the two flags from the front of the album artwork coming together. The list of songs are listed on one half of the CD in black writing, contrasting against the white background. On the other half of the CD, the artist name and album and the record company logo are featured in blue/black.

Detailed Video Analysis - Lower Than Atlantis

I have chosen to analyse the music video for Something Better Came Along as it fits well with my chosen genre. I will be talking about the micro elements that the director has used.


The video starts off with a high angle tracking shot down the train carriage. 'Lower Than Atlantis" is displayed on the screen as it flashes between the shot and a black screen. The next shot is a medium shot which shows the lead singer sat on one the seats, his body language suggests he is deep in thought about something. We then get quick close ups/medium shots of the other passengers on the train (an old woman, a younger woman, a man reading a newspaper and a mother and her son). High angled close up of the singer shows him looking down the train, followed with a POV shot to see two of the passengers (a boy and his mother), then back to the medium shot of the singer sat down. The next couple of shots are of the singer and the mother and son. A high angle motion shot down the carriage shows everyone sat in the train. This is followed by a close up of the singer who looks up and sees the boy and his mother, the camera then shows a close up of boy lip syncing to the song.

Detailed Video Analysis - Don Broco (Hold On)

The video starts with a establishing shot, showing the mansion in which the video is set.

3 shots of the band together are rapidly shown; the first is a wide shot that shows the entire band, dressed in suits, in a large room (the lead singer sat down on a chair holding a book, with the other band members stood behind him), the second shot shows the same thing as before but its just zoomed in to see the band clearer and the third shot shows a close up of the lead singers face as he smiles at the camera.

The next clip appears from the centre of the screen, a medium shot of the singer walking towards the camera as he opens the doors (which ties in with the transition). Two split close up shots of him singing into the camera appear at either side, but allow room for us to still see him in the middle.

A wide shot shows 4 women sat on/around one chair. They are all appearing to be wearing the same outfit as well as all having their hair tied back. The room seems almost symmetrical, with bookcases and flowers in the same spots. This is followed with a closer shot of them.

The screen then splits back to the lead singer, this time with a medium close up of him singing.

Our next shot is a close up of a clock, followed by a medium shot of a new room in which the singer and the 4 women are walking towards the camera. The women all have the same pose as they walk, with one hand on their hip, while the singer holds what appears to be a glass of whiskey with his other hand in his pocket. The screen then splits into 3 parts, in which the shots with the women disappear and are replaced with a close up of the singer again.

We then zoom in on the lead singer, sat with his feet up on the desk with two of the ladies sat/stood with him. He looks from one girl to the camera and 4 quick close ups are shown of each band member.

Shot Count - A Day To Remember (All Signs Point To Lauderdale)

For my shot count, I chose this video by A Day To Remember who are a pop-punk/hardcore band which fits into my chosen genre of pop-punk/rock.

Typical shots used:
Close Up - 33
Wide Shot - 17
Medium Shot - 26
Medium Close Up - 24

Close ups were mainly used to show the main protagonist/antagonist of the video. The wide angles were used more for changes of scene in the video, as well as showing the whole band together. A lot of cuts were used in this video to suit the fast paced nature of the song.

This video challenges the typical conventions of a rock video by focusing more on the story in the video and showing no shots of the band playing their instruments.

Shot Count - Four Year Strong (Stuck In The Middle)

I have chosen the video for Four Years Strong's 'Stuck in the Middle'. I have chosen this for my shot count because it is of a similar genre to the song I have chosen to use.

I counted 146 shot altogether. This included a lot of rapid shots to match the pace of the music, usually of the fans/crowd. The video uses a lot of medium shots as well as close ups, this is to show more focus on certain things, such as a setlist or mixing desk, which would be recognise able from this genre of music, and gives an idea of whats happening in the video.

The Brief

For our A2 Coursework, we have been instructed to create a promotional package for the release of an album. This includes a music promo video, a digipak for the albums release and an advertisement for the album.

The project is divided into five sections; planning, research, construction, final construction and evaluation. Research will involve looking into the conventions of my chosen genre whilst planning will involve planning my products around these conventions. Construction will include lots of drafts of my final products, as well as final construction to show my completed work. Finally, the evaluation will analyse my total work.